The Strange Jutsu!
by ShimaiDreamKeepers
Summary: "Lady Tsunade!" "What is it, Shizune?" "It's Naruto! He—!" "Yo." "Kakashi, what's going on!" "Well, Sakura is bringing in Naruto and Sai and Yamato are escorting Sasuke—" "My Lady, Naruto is—!" "Sakura, what's… but… that can't be! Will someone explain to me what's going on!" *-Next time: The Strange Jutsu!-* "Naruto is what!" No yaoi.
1. The Strange Jutsu

Disclaimer: We do NOT own Naruto!

A/N (sister1): By the way, no pairings, no yaoi.

_OK! For those of you who read our teaser (before we posted chapter 1), first off, THANK YOU! ^-^ We were really happy to get two reviews and it spurred us on to write quickly. Secondly, we changed things around a little, so it's not exactly the same as the teaser. And I think we added some scenes; sorry, we've written quite a bit since then and I can't remember… ^.^;; Therefore, even if you have read the teaser, you should still get something out of this chapter._ (sister1 and 2) Anyway, read, enjoy, Review! We like those! =D (sister2) _Onward! :}_

Summary (read like the preview for the next episode):

"Lady Tsunade!" Shizune cried.

"What is it, Shizune?" Tsunade had been filing paperwork peacefully, what in the world would cause Shizune's panic?

"It's Naruto! He—!"

"Yo," Kakashi unintentionally interrupted.

"Kakashi, what's going on!" Tsunade demanded. Shizune was staring at him like he was the one with answers.

"Well, Sakura is bringing Naruto in, and Sai and Yamato are escorting Sasuke—"

"My Lady, Naruto is—!" Sakura suddenly burst in the room holding an infant, a bright blond mop of hair on his crown. Sakura turned the baby around to reveal three lines on each cheek.

"Sakura, what's…. but… that can't be! Will someone explain to me what's going on?!" Tsunade demanded. Hokages didn't enjoy not knowing.

Next time: _The Strange Jutsu!_

"Naruto is what?!" She exclaimed after explanation.

**3/24/14 Update:** We did some story editing and added a bit to the summary to make it more clear but that's about it. ^^;; We currently do not have a beta, so please point out all errors.

"Naruto, slow down! We're not in a race!"

Naruto was leading the group as they sped in the direction of Konoha, jumping from tree to tree, when Sakura called out. Naruto twisted his head toward the pink haired kunoichi. "Sorry Sakura, I just can't wait to get back," he hollered over his shoulder, sending her his fox-like grin. "Tsunade-baachan said that we can look for Sasuke when this mission is over!"

Sakura watched as her hyper-active teammate turned to face forward again. Before they'd left on this mission a few days ago, Lady Tsunade had informed them that once they were finished she'd give them an official assignment to obtain any information regarding Sasuke's whereabouts.

At the time, Sakura had stared in wide-eyed silence, not daring to hope that they'd finally be able to search for their lost teammate. Then Naruto had burst into some combination of cheering, thanks, and declaring that they'd definitely find him.

She knew why Naruto wanted to get home so badly, probably knew better than most. But they had been going at the same unwavering pace ever since dawn and she was getting a little worn out and agitated. Plus they'd have to pass through another town before they got home.

If it hadn't been for the abnormally hot and humid weather on this mission, it wouldn't be such a strain to keep up civil pretences. Not to mention their client had been an abhorrent pain to deal with. Naruto had even lost his temper and almost strangled the arrogant, opinionated man. It also didn't help that the only time they took a break was for lunch. This was about three hours ago and the heat was getting to everyone… except Naruto.

Sakura glanced at the rest of the team Tsunade had assigned on this mission. Yamato was watching hers and Naruto's exchange, and Sai was intently studying his teammates behavior for what seemed like the twentieth time that day. Sakura's eyebrow twitched slightly in annoyance at being studied, but she quickly quashed it, glancing toward their captain. Kakashi seemed to be considering something; knowing him he was probably lost in thought at something in that porn book of his.

Sakura sighed.

Kakashi recognized the signs of fatigue in his team, especially Sakura's strained control on her temper, and was pondering over the thought of taking a twenty-minute break in the clearing up ahead when Yamato came up beside him.

"Kakashi," he said quietly. "I think we should take a break so that we can cool off and drink some water. Besides," he added warily. "I don't think Sakura will be able to keep from snapping much longer." Somewhere in his subconscious, Kakashi wondered if Yamato had picked up the ability read minds.

"Yeah, I was thinking the same thing," Kakashi agreed with a sideways glance at his subordinate. "Oi!" he called to gain everyone's attention. Sai and Sakura turned, while Naruto fell back a bit so he could hear. "We're going to take a break at the clearing up ahead."

"What are you talking about Kakashi-sensei," Naruto objected, turning toward his teacher. "We need to hurry! We don't have time for breaks!"

Kakashi looked at the young ninja's stubborn expression and sighed, "Look Naruto, not all of us have as much stamina as you," he said patiently. "We need to take a break."

Naruto landed in the clearing and rounded on his heels to face Kakashi, fully prepared to argue the point.

Sai, who was at the back of the group, opened his mouth to comment but Sakura unknowingly beat him to the punch.

"Naruto, I want to get back as badly as you do," she said in her best diplomatic voice. "But we simply do not have the endurance to continue at this pace." Naruto knew that Sakura wanted to get Sasuke back even more than he did.

"She's right, Naruto," Sai put in. "If we keep up this pace, we'll be in no condition to look for Sasuke."

Naruto realized that his friends were right but he still didn't want to give up. "Yeah, but... still…" Naruto looked down at his feet, unable to think of a suitable argument.

Then another voice interjected. "You know, Naruto, you could train for a little bit while we rest," Yamato pointed out.

Naruto gave Yamato a quizzical look. "How can I train when all of you want to kick back and relax?"

Sakura's brow twitched in irritation at his wording.

"He means," Kakashi clarified. "That you can go practice with your clones while we rest."

They all watched as Naruto's face lit up with understanding. "Ah! Wait, right here?"

Yamato smiled. "How about you train at that clearing with all the stumps."

"Oh, right!" Naruto exclaimed, turning away with his arms extended in his excitement.

"Naruto!" Kakashi called, said blond stopped and turned around making a questioning noise. "You can do that after you take two minutes to get some water down you." Naruto grumbled as his hands flopped down to his sides, and walked back to the giant tree where everyone was settling at the edge of the clearing.

Naruto took the canteen Kakashi offered him and sat down in the shade in front of his team. _'This is going to be a long two minutes,'_ Naruto thought as he took a drink of water.

**0o0o0**

"Itachi," Kisame said while looking at the Konoha team through some tree branches. "Shouldn't we get the jinchuuriki now while his companions have their guard down?" Kisame looked at Itachi expectantly.

"Wait until he's alone," Itachi monotoned. Kisame waited, but Itachi said nothing more. He looked back at the Konoha Nin.

Itachi seemed… he wasn't sure what the right words were. Itachi was not more focused than normal; not "a little off"; he seemed… just a little different than usual, but he couldn't put his finger on what it was. He looked at his companion blankly for a couple of seconds before realization spread across his shark-like face. "You're going to use that new jutsu you've been working on?" Kisame smirked when Itachi gave no response. "So you've finally gotten to the human guinea-pig stage, eh?"

Not expecting an answer, Kisame turned his attention back on their target. He was just in time to see the kyuubi brat hand his canteen to the only kunoichi in his group and take off in the direction they were originally headed. "-Oi, Naruto! Stay on the path!-" Kisame heard the pink-haired girl call after their target.

"-I know, I know!-"

"Kisame," Itachi said in his usual calm tone. "Stay here. Make sure they don't start looking for him too soon."

Kisame grinned, exposing his jagged teeth. "Sure, no problem." He went to return his focus on the jinchuuriki but was interrupted.

"Another thing," Itachi added to Kisame's surprise. "Don't get into a fight unless it's unavoidable." Kisame became puzzled at Itachi's order but didn't question it. Itachi always had a reason for his actions.

"Got it."

As soon as the words left his toothy mouth, Itachi disappeared to follow Naruto while Kisame stayed to watch the Konoha Nin. '_What I really want to see is what happens with that new jutsu of his,'_ Kisame thought. '_But I guess I'll see the results sooner or later.'_

A wide smirk spread across his shark-like face. _'This is going to be fun.'_

**0o0o0**

"Sasuke," Karin called out to her team leader, her tone causing him to turn slightly in her direction as they made their way down the path. "I can sense Itachi's chakra, and he's not alone."

"How many," Sasuke calmly ordered.

"Just one other," Karin answered promptly. Keeping things simple and to-the-point seemed to work best when Itachi was involved. "They are south-east from us, heading due south…" she trailed off in concentration.

Sasuke noted her change in attention and waited, knowing she'd soon relay her findings.

"So," Suigetsu interjected with a cocky smirk. "I guess the rumors we heard at the last town were true."

Karin ignored the water ninja's voice. "Sasuke," she sounded almost surprised. "The jinchuuriki is out here!"

"He is of no concern," Sasuke said in his usual monotone.

"But," Karin objected. "Itachi is moving toward him."

**0o0o0**

Naruto followed the path to an open field with stumps scattered around behind a thin tree-line just off the road. He remembered seeing it on their way over and had wished they could stop and use it as a training ground. It would have at least taken his mind off of their demanding client.

The area was about two kilometers from where his team had decided to rest; the location was a little far from his team but he figured everything would be fine, it wasn't like their mission had been S-rank or even A-rank.

As a matter of fact, things in Konoha had been quite peaceful and uneventful for the last month and a half now.

Naruto ran to the edge of the clearing, a smile spreading across his face.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"

**0o0o0**

Sakura glanced down the road where Naruto's back had disappeared for what seemed like the tenth time in the past three minutes.

For some reason Sakura was anxious. She had had a bad premonition before but this wasn't the same; it wasn't dread, it wasn't fear for someone's life, and it wasn't worry. It didn't seem to be _anything_. She was simply... uneasy.

"Is anything wrong, Sakura?" Yamato's voice snapped Sakura back to reality.

"Ah, no, it's nothing." Sakura lowered her head. She knew it wasn't nothing, but she couldn't figure out what it _was, _and there was no reason to report what she couldn't describe even to herself. She focused on the canteen in her hands then glanced back down the road.

Yamato and Kakashi shared a glance, not sure exactly what to make of Sakura's obvious discomfort.

**0o0o0**

Itachi waited in his hiding place mid-way up a tree for his prey. The jinchuuriki suddenly burst into the clearing, "-Kage Bunshin no jutsu!-" the blonde called excitedly to himself, followed by seven clones bursting from a cloud of chakra smoke. The clones flipped and dodged and punched at each other. Itachi watched for about 15 minutes as the young ninja sparred with his clones, but he knew he didn't have any more time to wait for the perfect moment to strike, so he jumped down from the tree, announcing his presence.

The jinchuuriki stopped; all eight of him, "Itachi! What are _you_ doing here?!" The nine-tails yelled in unison with his clones.

Itachi didn't feel obligated to respond; he didn't have time for words. Soon the other Konoha Nin would be coming and he had to have his jutsu completed by the time the two ANBU-level jounin showed up and complicated matters. Itachi put the blonde under a genjutsu to stop his movements and dispel the clones, then placed a paper seal on the jinchuuriki's forehead and started his sting of hand signs before there was enough time to take a breath. Itachi felt his chakra swirl and focus. A puff of smoke surrounded the nine-tails, a sure sign that _something_ had resulted from the experimental jutsu.

Itachi wasn't sure whether his experiment would be a success, but if it worked, then it would make restraining and transporting the jinchuuriki extremely easy.

**0o0o0**

Kakashi observed as Sakura seemed to settle down after nearly 20 minutes of glancing down the road. '_I wonder what caused her to be so anxious,' _Kakashi thought as they walked. _'She seems to have calmed down now.'_ Kakashi glanced at the rest of his team and then back at Sakura. _'Though it has been like the calm before the storm for the past month-and-a-half now,' _Kakashi mused.

"Kakashi-sensei?" Said man looked over at the girl who sounded completely ill at ease. "If Naruto stayed on the path like he was told to… then shouldn't we have heard him by now?"

**0o0o0**

Sasuke, who decided to go ahead of his team in case he managed to track Itachi down, made it just in time for his sharingan to see Itachi place a paper seal on Naruto and begin a list of hand signs, almost entirely hidden from view. A burst of smoke surrounded Naruto. Sasuke expected Itachi to stand and watch the result of the jutsu, but instead Itachi leapt from the clearing in favor of a hiding place.

The smoke slowly cleared away from where Naruto was supposed to be standing. Sasuke was puzzled, that wasn't a reverse-summoning jutsu, nor was it a transportation jutsu. Of that he was sure. Sasuke's brow furrowed as he spotted Naruto's clothing lying on the forest floor. He looked a little closer and caught a glimpse of blond straggly hair amongst the clothes.

Suddenly, a tiny face with three whisker marks popped out of the head-hole in Naruto's shirt.

'_No way…'_ was all that went through Sasuke's mind.

(sister1 and 2) So what ya think? =] Did we do a good job?

Thanks to XxBishxX and Bookielovesanimeeee (good guess, but no cigar ^.^) for your reviews of our teaser! We started writing more and will likely be able to post a chapter 2 in the near future! ^-^ (sister1) _I think there's a way for us to respond to your reviews, but for some reason I don't know how… Explanation anybody?_

Just so you all know; comments and reviews make us happy, and happy writers write faster (hint, hint; wink, wink). We also like (read LOVE) constructive criticism, so if you find something that you don't think works, let us know; it may just help us become better writers. =)


	2. Sasuke, what's wrong?

Disclaimer: We do NOT own Naruto!

Next chapter's up! Woo Hoo! =]

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Leave review before you leave~!

Ok, on with the show, uh, fanfic!

* * *

><p>It had been a little over twenty minutes and the Konoha Nin had begun to travel down the path. Kisame followed completely quiet and out of sight, masking his presence.<p>

Not really knowing if Itachi was done with his task, Kisame started to debate on what to do.

_I wonder if Itachi is done yet…_ Kisame thought._ Should I delay them…?_ Kisame's thoughts were interrupted by cawing. He looked up to see a black bird tilt its head to glance down at him in mid-flight; the Kiri Nin observed as the bird landed ten yards away from him and cawed again.

Kisame showed his toothy jaws, "So, you want me to follow you, huh?" He said with an evil smirk. "Guess that means he's done with his jutsu."

**0o0o0**

Sasuke stared unable to take his red eyes off of the little blond head that was a lot bigger just a few seconds ago. The tiny body did not stay still; little arms started to poke out of the shirt's head-hole trying to remove the heavy clothing. Sasuke suddenly realized what he was doing and glanced around, making sure he was alone.

There was no one.

Sasuke hopped from limb to limb until he landed in a tree bordering the clearing, trying to get a better look. _'__That can _not_ be Naruto…'_ He allowed the thought to pass through his mind. Glancing around, '_Where'd Itachi run off to?'_ He mused, scanning the trees, trying to get his mind back on his most important task.

"Look! There's Naruto's clothes!" A female voice suddenly called, snapping Sasuke's attention back to Naruto.

**0o0o0**

Naruto looked around, wondering why there was black and orange cloth over his face. Reaching his arms in the air the cloth quickly slid away, uncovering his head. Everything looked so weird; so _big_. Realizing this must be Itachi's genjutsu, he lifted his arms to get them free from the cloth, and then tried to make a hand sign to cancel out the genjutsu, but his fingers wouldn't make the sign his brain was telling them to make…

"Look! There's Naruto's clothes!"

_Sakura?_ Naruto turned his head and spotted Sakura, along with everyone else, running towards him. He also spotted something else in the trees just behind Sakura, a dark spot; Naruto looked closer and realized it was Sasuke!

Naruto reached his hands towards Sasuke and tried to yell at Sakura, 'There he is! There's Sasuke!' A sudden excited squeal surprised Naruto, but he ignored it; he had finally found Sasuke! He continued to yell at Sakura but she didn't turn around like Naruto expected. Instead, she focused on him and an expression that he couldn't recognize plastered itself to her face.

Naruto was bewildered, '_why is she looking at me like that,' _he thought with concern, _'__and why won't she look at Sasuke?'_

He looked at all his teammates, 'Why won't you look at him?' Naruto demanded. A gurgling 'kah' noise expressed itself.

"What happened…?" Yamato queered, worry pinned on his face.

"Is that really Naruto?" Sakura asked almost scared.

Sai, who didn't seem quite as mystified as the others, said, "Well, look at that. Naruto's been turned into a baby."

All heads snapped toward Sai for a fraction of a second before a choked out squeak brought all attention back on Naruto.

'I'm a WHAT?' Naruto repeated. 'I couldn't have been turned into a baby! Itachi never got close to— ITACHI!' The baby noises were back, and getting on Naruto's nerves. 'Itachi was here jus—'

"In any case," Kakashi interrupted Naruto, and the screeching sounds. "We should get Naruto back to Konoha, maybe Lady Tsunade will be able to find a way to undo what's been done."

'Go back? But-!' The screeching sound was starting to make Naruto loose his concentration. Kakashi bent down and, to Naruto's surprise, picked him up. Naruto took a few seconds to look at his body still wrapped up in his own shirt; he was small, short, stubby, and—

'What about Sasuke?' Naruto demanded, twisting around and reaching in the direction he had seen Sasuke: behind Sakura.

"Looks like he wants Sakura to carry him," Sai noted.

Normally Naruto would have had had something to say about that comment, but at the moment he was focused on Sasuke's team showing up. It looked like they asked Sasuke a couple of questions, then they all disappeared.

'NO!' Naruto cried. The sudden scream caused Kakashi to jolt. 'We have to go after Sasuke!'

"Hah hah,"

The small laugh made Naruto look over at the owner of the voice. "Looks like Naruto doesn't want Sakura to carry him after all," Sai giggled.

Naruto glanced back at Sakura. He was expecting her to be mad, but she just stared at Naruto and said nothing, almost as if she hadn't heard Sai's comment. Naruto quickly looked back to where Sasuke had been but he was nowhere to be seen. A screechy crying now filled Naruto's ears.

"Is he alright?" Yamato asked worriedly. Everyone glanced at each other, "I have no experience with babies." He stated.

"Nor do I," Sai conquered.

"Let's focus on getting him back to Konoha," Kakashi suggested.

**0o0o0**

Itachi and Kisame looked on as team Kakashi discovered their, now smaller, teammate.

"Itachi, shouldn't we have taken the jinchuuriki with us?" Kisame asked puzzled as to why his partner would just leave their prize where Kakashi and the rest of his squad could easily find the nine-tails.

"Not yet."

Kisame looked at his companion and wondered just what was going through that head of his.

"_Let's focus on getting him back to Konoha." _

Hearing the voice Kisame looked back at the group of people and stood by as they departed for Konoha.

"Let's go." Itachi said simply.

Kisame looked at him curiously.

"Are we going to follow them?"

"No, we know where they're going."

**0o0o0**

One whole minute had passed since they had embarked on the trip back towards Konoha, and Naruto's wailing was starting to wear on everyone's nerves.

"Will someone quiet Naruto!" Yamato was the first to complain.

"It's only been a minute and you're already grumbling?" Kakashi asked with a smile in his voice. Yamato's expression said –don't go there– while Kakashi simply eye-smiled.

Sai walked over to Kakashi and Naruto, "It's ok, Naruto, we'll have those small—"

Naruto's sudden screaming outburst cut Sai off.

Sakura decided to try and settle him down, "Naruto," she said calmly and quietly. She was still shaken from the initial shock of finding her teammate in this state, but she couldn't ignore him any longer. "We don't know what's wrong. We know that you are unhappy, but we don't know what to do." Naruto stopped crying to listen, still gurgling out hiccups. "Your constant crying is making us unhappy as well. Until we get you back to normal, do you think you can quiet down?"

To everyone's surprise, Naruto looked at them all in turn and gave something that looked almost like a nod; almost.

A few seconds later, Naruto continued to make gurgling hiccup-y noises. He still sounded quite sad, but at least these sounds were tolerable.

**0o0o0**

"Sasuke!" Karin cried. Jugo and Suigetsu both whirled and faced a collapsed Sasuke.

"What happened!" Jugo anxiously asked anyone who knew the answer.

"I don't know!" Karin exclaimed, her voice thick with worry. "All of a sudden he just crumpled to the ground!"

"Can't you just have him bite you and then he will get better?" Suigetsu asked with some annoyance.

"No I can't!" Karin spat back "I can only heal wounds!"

Jugo looked from Suigetsu to Karin, who had already looked back at the raven-haired ninja's pained face. "Can you tell what's wrong with him?" Jugo asked awkwardly.

Karin started studying Sasuke intently. "There's a thin layer of chakra surrounding his body, and it seems to be stretching out like a thread; as if it's connected to something." She said while turning her head to find the direction of the chakra string.

"So all we have to do is find out where the chakra is coming from and force the caster to undo this strange jutsu." Suigetsu said almost sarcastically.

Karin glared at the white-haired ninja but was unable to argue. For the next couple of seconds the trio stared at their leader trying to figure out what they should do.

"All right then," Suigetsu sneered. "Jugo, carry him; Karin, keep your eyes on that line."

"Who made you leader!" Karin shouted.

"I did, just now." Suigetsu scoffed.

"Guys, if we don't get going, I don't think Sasuke will—" Jugo interjected while pulling an ill Sasuke on his back, interrupting himself with a grunt of effort.

"Well which direction?" Suigetsu inquired, not waiting for Jugo to finish.

Karin's eyes fallowed the string of chakra. "That way," she pointed.

"But, that's…" Jugo trailed off.

"Yeah," Karin said. "It looks like we're heading straight for Konohagakure."

**0o0o0**

Sasuke felt his body going numb not long after leaving with his three teammates to find Itachi. He had said nothing of the baby-Naruto jutsu. After a few minutes of searching for leads in the forest, the nuke-nin began to feel sick. Sasuke looked over at Jugo, Karin, and Suigetsu and realized that his vision was blurring and his head swirled. He jumped to land on the ground instead of a tree branch and faltered.

Suddenly, all chakra control seemed lost, the Uchiha tried to keep his balance, but his stomach didn't want to hang onto his lunch; he couldn't focus on both. Sasuke decided not to throw up and let himself crumble to the ground. He made little noise, though his mind was whirring: '_Ugh, what in the world…? What's wrong with me…?'_

"Sasuke!" Karin's voice sounded so far away. "Wha hapen'!" "I 'on't kno-!" The voices were fading, he could still hear them but they sounded like they were underwater.

A little while later, or maybe it was an hour, Sasuke felt a tug on his body and allowed himself to be hoisted up onto someone's back. He futilely tried to open his eyes, _'__Just… figure it out soon…'_ He wordlessly told his team.

* * *

><p>AN: We're evil little writers: we've discovered the joys cliffhangers *diabolical grins*

So? How'd we do? Wonderful? Horrible? Inbetweenqual? We crave reviews~! We want to know your thoughts, feelings, concerns, what you liked, what you hated (no flames), and comments in general.

Stay tuned for chapter three! =]


	3. Premonition

Team Kakashi approached the town they'd have to pass through. Naruto had stopped making sad sounds, but he seemed… almost depressed. That didn't quite describe him; 'sad yet too tired to care' fit a little better.

Kakashi glanced down at the bundled baby in his arms, his mind asking a million questions: _What kind of jutsu could do this? Does it wear off over time? Will we have to track down the jutsu caster? Is Naruto going to be okay stuck like this? Is Naruto's mind still intact or did the jutsu completely revert his memory along with his body?_

Kakashi's deliberation was interrupted by a small hand grabbing at his green vest. Looking down at the small blonde Kakashi smiled. He noticed two things; one was that Naruto's thumb was currently falling out of his mouth and the second was his blue eyes were drooping as if he were more than ready for a long nap.

"Kakashi-sensei."

Kakashi looked over at the lone kunoichi.

"Shouldn't we get him some clothes so he isn't half naked?" Sakura asked while glancing at the drowsy Naruto.

Kakashi peered back down at Naruto and couldn't help but agree with Sakura; since the only thing that Naruto had wrapped around him was his own, now too-big, shirt.

"Then," Sai interjected. "Shouldn't we find a store that sells baby items?" Sai had been the one to remember Naruto's clothes abandoned on the forest floor and currently had them rolled in his pack.

The four ninja looked at each other and then at the little bundle in Kakashi's arms. All of them wondering how much the clothes and other essentials were going to cost.

"Excuse me."

The team looked up at the new voice, Kakashi noted that Naruto's attention was caught by the stranger but the boy momentarily disregarded her, turning back to Kakashi and closing his eyes.

"I couldn't help but over hear you and I have some baby clothes that might fit the little one." The woman who looked to be about mid- to late twenties said.

"Oh, we couldn't possi—"

"Nonsense!" The woman cut Sakura off. "My son has already outgrown them, so it would be no trouble at all," she said smiling sweetly.

"Thank you," Kakashi said. "We appreciate it."

The woman's soft smile grew to crinkled her eyes a little, "My house is just down this street, come."

As the Konoha Nin followed the young lady, Yamato leaned in toward Kakashi, "Are you sure it is okay to trust her like this? She didn't seem curious at Naruto's current lack in clothing or ask why he's wrapped in an adult size shirt…"

Kakashi glanced up at their guide, then back to Yamato, "It should be fine; she is definitely not a ninja." '_Not to mention,'_ Kakashi thought to himself. _'__Naruto didn't seem bothered by her at all.'_

**0o0o0**

Naruto realized that his body wasn't always listening to what he wanted it to do as soon as his thumb was in his mouth. Even more strange was the fact that performing such an action actually made him feel better; calmer.

_'__This stinks.'_ Naruto thought, gnawing on his digit. '_I finally find Sasuke but I can't tell the others because I get turned into a baby by the teme's bro_–'

Naruto's train of thought was cut off by a wave of tiredness.

'_Why'm I so tired?' _Naruto mulled. '_Should I be… this sleepy?' _

Naruto felt his thumb falling out of his mouth and his other hand reaching up to Kakashi's vest; like his body was making sure that someone was there to protect him while he slept.

"Kakashi-sensei."

Naruto heard Sakura call, and felt a slight movement beneath him.

"Shouldn't we get him some clothes so he isn't hal—"

Naruto disregarded the rest of their conversation; it was taking up energy and he was pretty sure that he didn't want to hear that last bit.

'_They're starting to sound far off anyway.' _Naruto justified while closing his eyes.

"Excuse me."

'_That voice… that isn't Sakura's.'_

For once, since the little episode with Sasuke, Naruto's mind and body both wanted to respond in the same way … well, almost. The only problem was that he wanted to move his head quickly while his body was too tired to do so.

Naruto looked at the young women who spoke. She didn't seem dangerous. Naruto pondered tiredly, '_Mmgh, I'm too tired… to think… anymore.'_

**0o0o0**

"I'm home" A voice called from outside.

"Momma!" A young boy called back. He rushed to the door to find his mother.

"Hey, wait up!" came a teenage voice calling after him. She found the boy standing still in the hallway just before the door. "Rowen?" The young babysitter looked toward the door to discover several new faces, and the reason for the young boy's blank stare. "Oh! Hello." She said smiling, straightening and giving a slight bow of her head.

"Good afternoon." The older girl she didn't recognize said politely.

"Has he been good for you?"

"Yes! He's been very good."

"That's my big Rowen." His mother said while bending down to her son's eye level. "Would you and Kilari do me a big favor?" She looked at the young girl for permission to include her. Kilari nodded. Turning her attention back to her son she asked, "Would you both please look for your old baby clothes in the attic for me?"

Rowen's brow furrowed. "Why?" He's question wasn't rude or challenging, just curious.

His mother smiled, "Come here, Rowen, there's someone for you to meet." The gray haired man, recognizing his cue, walked forward and bent down to show the young boy the baby in his arms.

"This is Naruto," the masked man said gently.

Rowen's brow furrowed again. "Like the fish cake in my noodles?"

The four strangers looked at each other and smiled knowingly. Mr. Scarecrow's uncovered eye creased like he was smiling but he hid his mouth and nose, "Yes, just like the fish cake in your noodles." Rowen beamed from ear to ear.

"Run along now and do as I asked."

Rowen looked up at his mother excitedly, "Ok, Momma." Rowen acknowledged his mother. "Common Kili-nee-san!"

"My name's Kilari! Kee-LAR-ee !" The young sitter called as she ran after Rowen. The adults smiled and the two women giggled, "You have a couple of good kids there." Yamato commented.

"Yes, they are wonderful." Rowen's mother said.

"Are they both yours?" Sakura asked.

"No, Kilari is my niece, but those two act just like brother and sister." The woman said happily.

"That they do."

Every eye glanced at the male figure with surprise, all except the owner of the house; Sakura was the only one who's eyes were wide.

"What?" Sai questioned.

"It's nothing," Sakura stated, composing herself. "I'll tell you later."

Rowen's mother had a slight question on her face but kept it to herself.  
>Kakashi looked over what he could see of the house, "Quite a nice place you have here."<p>

"Yes, I agree," the woman smiled warmly as she made her own inspection. "It is all I have left of him." She then looked back at the Konoha ninja in her home and explained further, "My husband died in a carpentry accident almost two years ago; now this house and what he left inside it are all that remains."

"I'm sorry for your loss," Yamato expressed his condolences for himself and the team.

The woman returned a smile. Sakura was beginning to wonder if this lady ever _stopped_ smiling; it reminded her a lot of Naruto's constant enthusiasm. "Thank you," the woman said quietly then raised her voice slightly, "Oh, how rude of me, my name is Kana."

"I'm Kakashi," the silver-haired man stated. "And this is Yamato, Sakura, and Sai," he introduced his teammates, pausing between names to allow them to state a 'nice to meet you' or nod their head.

Kana bowed her head slightly, "It's a pleasure," she echoed warmly.

**0o0o0**

"Over here, I found them!" Kilari called to Rowen.

He looked up at his cousin with a questioning face, "Why do I have to give my baby clothes to a stranger?"

"Didn't you see him? He had no clothes; nothing besides that too-big shirt." She looked back with a grin on her face. "Besides, don't you think it would be fun to help a baby by giving him your old clothes that you can't use anymore?"

Rowen considered this, "I guess…"

"So let's gather up these clothes and get them back to your mom."

"Hai!" The boy affirmed excitedly, apparently deciding to agree with his cousin.

A few minutes later both youngsters were pounding down the attic steps.

"We found them, Momma!" Rowen called from the bottom of the attic steps.

"Good job my little fish cake!" She called back.

The lady-stranger looked over at his mother, "Fish cake?"

His mom gave a glowing grin, "Rowen's favorite food is the naruto in ramen." She explained.

The lady-stranger and the guy with the metal horseshoe on his face smiled, the white one with black hair seemed to be blank, and the scarecrow's eye opened in surprise for a second.

Rowen ran up carrying his old clothes. "Here Mamma, I got them."

"I don't need them, Naruto does." She pointed to the baby in the scarecrow's arms.

Rowen looked over at Naruto, then at his mother, then back to Naruto before staring at the floor as he shyly began walking towards the silver haired man, who bent down to Rowen's height.

Rowen walked up to Naruto, who was fast asleep, smiled, and set his clothes on the man's arms. "Ne, Naruto, grow up big and strong like me, ok?"

Everyone in the room smiled.

**0o0o0**

Under a shaded tree, a large white dog whined. The young man sitting next to the dog glanced over and said, "Yeah, I know. I feel it too."

"K-Kiba," A female voice broke in.

Both heads turned to find the voice, "Hinata, what are you doing out here?"

"Ah, w-well, y-you see…" she stuttered.

Kiba couldn't quite place it, but something was a little off today. Hinata was stuttering more than usual so she probably felt the abnormal atmosphere too.

Hinata inhaled deliberately, bringing Kiba out of his musing, "I-Is everything okay?" she finally asked.

Kiba an Akamaru blinked, then looked at each other.

"It looks like you three have sensed it as well…" The three under the tree twisted and craned their necks just in time to see the Aburame leap out of the tree, "The restlessness in the air is making my bugs nervous."

"Shino!" Hinata was slightly surprised at seeing him all the way out in the training grounds. She was sure he had had some sort of appointment with the Hokage.

"What are you guys doing here?" A new voice interjected.

"Shikamaru!" Kiba called smiling and Akamaru gave a friendly bark. "Akamaru and I always come here. I don't know about these two yet, everyone keeps showing up one right after the other."

"I came to check on my teammates," The insect-host stated, characteristically deadpan. "Why? Because my insects are oddly unsettled today."

"I came to s-see if anyone was here at the t-training grounds, and I-I found Kiba, Akamaru, and S-Shino." Hinata explained herself. "How about y-y-you?" She asked tentatively. "What b-brings you out h-here?"

"Uh, I came out here to find some quiet so I could watch the clouds and think."

"Think about what! How about we consider our youthful passion and our will of fire!" There were only two people in all of Konoha with that much excited energy.

"Lee? What are _you_ doing here?" All heads turned to yet another new voice.

"T-Tenten," Hinata Identified her comrade. "How a-are you?"

"Can't complain." She answered while presenting a thumbs-up and a wink.

Choji suddenly broke into the conversation, "Hey everyone, is there a party goin' on?" he asked, walking over with a bag of chips in his hands. "Hurry up Ino!" He hollered over his shoulder.

"I'm coming, I'm coming. What's the rush—" Ino stopped short staring at everyone. "Whoa, what's everyone doing here?"

"That's a good question," Kiba agreed. But he was interrupted by his teammate.

"Neji," Everyone turned at Shino's greeting. Following the Aburame's gaze, they found that Neji was indeed walking over to the group, looking a little surprised.

"See, whud I tell ya," Kiba said. "Everyone's just showing up one right after the other."

Shikamaru eyed his comrades, "What's everyone doing here?" It was extremely rare for the entirety of the Rookies, as they had been labeled, to be assembled at any given time.

"You see…" Tenten searched for the words, "Uh, I guess that's a little hard to explain…"

"There's a certain sensation traveling through the air," Neji clarified for his teammate.

"That's right," Ino and Tenten echoed each other.

"I've been having a bad premonition since this morning." Ino continued.

Murmurs of agreement floated around the young ninja.

"Hey," All eyes came to rest on Kiba. The young man glanced around at his friends' faces, "Has anyone else not been able to get Naruto out of their mind?"

**0o0o0**

"Get it, Shizune!"

"I'm trying my lady!" Shizune called desperately. "It wouldn't be so hard if we could simply kill it."

"We can't do that!" The Godaime said sternly. "All leads would be lost!"

Konoha's Hokage and her assistant chased the insect for another few seconds, then several things happened in quick succession: first, the office door opened quickly; second, the insect, seeing a way of escape, made a brake for the open door; and finally, Tsunade yelled, "Quickly, shut the door!" and the next thing any of them knew, the bug was trapped in the surprised chunin's cupped hands.

The two women exhaled a breath they didn't know they were holding.

"Well this is a sight to see," The bug catcher said in a laughing tone. "The Godaime Hokage and her assistant running around the office chasing an insect."

"That 'insect' happens to be part of a mission update." The Hokage said shortly.

"My apologies," the chunin said sincerely with a bow of his head. Shizune shut the door and held up a small plastic container and he placed the bug inside.

With the insect safely secured, Tsunade asked, "So what is it?" as she walked toward her desk.

The shinobi tilted his head slightly, "Didn't _you_ call me here?" He asked curiously.

Tsunade, who had sat back down in her chair to go over some built-up paperwork, looked up from the pile. "I called you?" She pressed.

"Yes," He began. "I was compiling my report in the library when a voice came from behind me and said that the Hokage wanted to see me as soon as possible. I turned around but there was no one in sight; I figured you had sent a Black Ops so I gathered my things and came straight here."

"Hmm," the Fifth was deep in thought.

"Um," Attention was back on the jounin. "I know this is a weird question, but do you know how Naruto's team is doing?" Tsunade and Shizune exchanged surprised glances. "I know it's not usually customary to ask about the status of a mission in progress, but for some reason I can't get him out of my head…"

The Hokage peered at the man opposite her, "To be honest, Naruto has been on a lot of people's minds this morning."

She laced her fingers together and tucked her chin behind them, "Mine included."

**0o0o0**

Sasuke became aware of his body swaying up and down, back and forth; the motion of a person walking briskly. However, the Uchiha's limbs felt limp, which meant that he was being carried. The sharingan user searched for his eyelids. Finally locating them, he opened his eyes slowly and found that he was on Jugo's back. Sasuke discovered that his body felt a little better, nonetheless a groan escaped him.

"Sasuke! Are you ok?" Karin was beside him in a heartbeat.

Sasuke wanted to spit back —_Do I _look_ ok?_— But he couldn't form the words. He figured it was just as well; it wasn't like him to lose his cool. "Ngh, what's going on? Where are we going?"

"Ah, that's…" Karin stumbled over the words.

"We're following a chakra line that's connected to your body." Suigetsu decided to answer since Karin was getting nowhere in that department.

Sasuke's eyebrows came together slightly, "A chakra line?" He asked, still feeling a bit muddled after waking up.

"Yeah, it seems to be a thread of chakra that extends out beyond my line of vision." Karin explained. "It is connected to the chakra that has enveloped your body."

'_Chakra has enveloped my body?'_ Sasuke thought to himself. _'Sounds like someone cast a jutsu on me… But I was never close enough to anyone for them to have the chance.'_ A different thought crossed the young man's mind, "Where are we heading?"

Jugo shifted under Sasuke in order to look back at him, "We seem to be heading towards Konohagakure."

"There's a village between here and Konoha though," Suigetsu presented. "So maybe the chakra line is connected to someone there instead of Konoha."

"The chakra thread is connected to someone?" Sasuke queered, blinking. His team was not doing a good job of explaining things. Either that or his brain was far too foggy to make sense of their explanations.

Karin glared at the white-haired ninja, "Suigetsu thinks so." She said shortly.

Sasuke ignored the following insult fight between the duo; instead he tested the strength in his arms and legs. "Jugo, put me down," he ordered, in an even more deadpan tone than usual.

Jugo quickly stopped and knelt down so that their leader could stand of his own accord. "Are you sure that you're feeling alright?" Jugo asked, concern apparent in his voice.

Instead of answering, the Uchiha flexed his muscles, this and the fact that he was much more talkative than usual told his team that 'alright' was the wrong word.

"Okay! Since you're feeling better we can get back to work!" Suigetsu called, excited at the prospect of actually doing something. Karin's head snapped in his direction with an evil glare. "What? Sasuke's fine now, we can get back to looking for Itachi."

Karin smacked the water ninja over the head, "Oww! What was that for!"

"Because you're stupid, that's why!" Karin spat back.

"I am not! You're the one who's stupid!"

Sasuke inhaled slowly and sighed. _'What am I doing? Why am I so much more expressive than usual?'_ Normally, Sasuke would never show emotion; not concern, restlessness, joy, interest, illness, sadness, weakness… not for very many reasons at least. He decided it was because he was recently unconscious and left it at that. The nuke-nin took a breath in order to address his team, then decided against the idea. Instead, he glanced around to get his bearings, and started walking back toward the place Itachi was last seen.

Jugo noticed him walking away and called out. Karin and Suigetsu stopped their squabbling to stare in surprise at their leader. Sasuke, however, did not stop nor acknowledge that he heard their calls.

"Hey, wait up!" Jugo exclaimed as he ran up beside his leader. "Where are we going?"

"…Back to work." Sasuke said.

Suigetsu presently sneered at Karin who glared in return.

The three ninja followed the Uchiha for about five minutes; in that amount of time they had walked about half a mile back towards the small open field where Itachi was first spotted.

Sasuke began to feel that sickening tug at his chest; the same sensation he felt not long before collapsing earlier.

Suddenly, the Uchiha turned around and began walking back the way they'd just come.

"Sasuke?" Karin questioned after him.

Suigetsu, who was in the lead, whipped around to see his leader walking in the opposite direction, "Ugh, what is it now?" He asked exasperated.

Sasuke didn't answer, instead he presented his own question, "Karin, which direction does the chakra thread extend to?"

Karin was surprised by the question, but didn't delay her answer. "Um, it's that way," she said pointing a little to Sasuke's left. Sasuke changed direction accordingly.

"Oh, don't tell me we're going all the way back!" Suigetsu complained freely.

No one answered directly; the ensuing silence was answer enough.

"You've got to be kidding me!" Suigetsu cried. "I thought we were finally getting back to work!" Suigetsu's voice was beginning to give Sasuke a headache. "Why are we going on this wild goose chase anyway?"

"Suigetsu," all attention was back on Sasuke. "Shut up." He said simply and continued walking away from the shocked faces behind him.

Team Hebi walked in silence, and Sasuke didn't let it go to waste._ 'It seems I won't be able to search for Itachi effectively if I can't undo this jutsu.'_ Sasuke had already suspected genjutsu and attempted to release it, but to no avail. _'It appears that I get sick if I walk away from the chakra…'_ He thought, considering the results of his experiment earlier when he had been all but forced to retrace his steps, much to Suigetsu's annoyment._ 'My only option at the moment seems to be finding whatever, or whoever, this chakra thread is connected to and see if I can learn something.'_

Sasuke was still deliberating when a picture of Naruto's tiny face popped into his head, but the image was roughly shoved away. _'Naruto has nothing to do with this,'_ he thought firmly.

* * *

><p>AN: sis1: Oh my goodness, we finally got the chapter up! And it has like no action in it, ugh! I thought it was hard to write when just one of us had writer's block, but it is nearly _impossible_ when **both** of us have writer's block... sorry guys, please don't be too upset. . . . . . Hellllooooo... sis ? You there?

sis2: Zzzzz...

sis1: Ok, guess that leaves this author's note to me then. =P

sis2: Hay! I'm awake, I'm awake.

sis1: Yeah, barely, but it is the middle of the night, so I excuse you. =)Anyway, Back on track, so what did you guys think? Good? Bad? Ugly? I hope not, but we still love to get constructive critisism and especially random thoghts. So far those are the best! ^^

sis1/2: We'd like to thank dreamingwandererofthelight, ArrancarMaiden, Bookielovesanimeeee, devil M, InoSakuShine, and Yami Kurushimi for your reviews! When we got absolutely stuck, we'd re-read your reviews and get an idea. Even if for only one or two sentances =] Thanks! A special thanks to our only recuring reviewer, Bookielovesanimeeee, for puting grand smiles on our faces and making us really, really want to get the next chapter up for ya! ^^

Leave a review! Please and thank you! :)


	4. What now?

Naruto woke up slowly. _'Nngh, what happened?'_ He wondered vaguely. His body was swaying back and forth which didn't help him wake up in the least. _'The last thing I remember… I was training with my clones after finishing the mission...'_ Naruto shifted his position, trying to feel what was beneath him; it felt like some sort of fabric, not the dirt or grass he was expecting. Nor was it like any sort of blanket he'd ever felt before. It felt oddly familiar for some reason, but the blonde couldn't remember why. A picture of Sasuke looking down at him from a tree branch popped into his head.

'Sasuke!' Naruto tried to bolt upright as if he'd been lying on his back.

"Whoa, there, Naruto," Kakashi soothed, barely catching the boy before he plummeted head-first to the ground.

"What happened?" Sakura exclaimed. "Is he alright?"

"He's fine," Kakashi answered. "It seems he was a little energetic when he woke up."

During this conversation, Naruto was righted, and very confused. He stared at his teammates wondering why they looked so… weird. A memory suddenly hit the boy and he whirled around to look at Kakashi. The tiny ninja's body didn't listen quite as well as he would have liked, but he managed to turn around quickly nonetheless.

Naruto's eyes met Kakashi's scrutinizing gaze. The blonde held did not glance away for several seconds before his brow crinkled in concentration. Kakashi studied the change in expression closely. Naruto tried to reason out some of the questions swirling in his head, but he had too many to simply pin one down.

Suddenly, Naruto began to feel sick to his stomach and dizzy. _'Ugh, what's wrong with me now?'_ He swayed then doubled over to keep himself from throwing up.

"Watch it!" He heard Sakura cry out. He could feel a pair of gentle hands on his body. Naruto, however, couldn't tell up from down. His body didn't seem to care what happened to it as he stayed tightly doubled over; almost as if landing on the hard ground almost two meters down was of no consequence. He soon felt the familiar fabric of the green ninja vest against his cheek. The fabric rubbed his face, making it seem like he was sliding sideways. When the rubbing stopped, Naruto figured he was lying down in Kakashi's arms. _In Kakashi-sensei's arms… Stupid Itachi and his stupid jutsu.'_ He thought slowly, agitated with the situation.

"Are you sure he's okay?" Yamato asked dubious.

"He looks sick." Naruto heard Sai comment.

"That much is obvious, Sai." _…Sakura._

Naruto was trying to focus on their conversation as much as possible in order to distract himself; to keep his stomach under control.

"I mean he looks just like you or I when we get sick."

"What are you getting at?" Judging from Kakashi's quick response, Naruto figured that Sakura was just about to unleash some of her strength on Sai.

"W-well," Sai wavered momentarily. "I've never seen a sick baby before, but I've been told that they cry a lot when they don't feel good." Naruto thought he could feel several pairs of eyes on him, but his stomach was making it hard to tell.

"You're right," Sakura agreed. "When a baby feels sick, they will usually cry."

"But he's not making a sound," Yamato observed.

"He may not be crying now," Kakashi organized his thoughts. "But he was crying quite a bit when we first found him."

"Oh, yeah," Yamato recalled blandly. "How could I forget?"

"That means," Sai reasoned, ignoring Yamato's comment. "Naruto's current behavior may simply be a product of the jutsu."

Kakashi nodded, "There is simply no way for us to know for sure."

Naruto's body began to loosen up; he no longer felt like throwing up and his muscle control was coming back. The young-man-turned-baby relaxed and opened his eyes to look at everyone.

"Looks like he feels better now," Sakura pointed out. "His muscles are not so tight anymore."

'_Leave it to the med ninja to be the first one to point it out,'_ Yamato thought smiling.

"Anyway," Kakashi put in. "We'd better get going. Lady Tsunade should examine Naruto as soon as possible." The team started walking down the path again.

Naruto sat up, feeling less of the aftereffects now, and considered Kakashi's statement. _'Aw, man!'_ A series of whines and moans broke the air. _'You mean Tsunade-baa-chan is going to see me like this?'_ Naruto complained. _'I bet Pervy Sage will too… *sigh* I'm never gonna hear the end of this…'_

"…I wonder if he's feeling sick again," Sai speculated.

Naruto glared at the artsy ninja, then gave it up with another sigh. _'I guess it's not your fault you can't understand me.'_ He looked at his tiny hands sullenly. _'It's all this dang jutsu's fault!'_ While staring at his stubby hands, he noticed that sleeves were covering his arms. Naruto glanced at the rest of his body. _'When did I get new clothes?'_ He wondered out loud. _'These clothes look just like mine,'_ the boy said to himself grinning.

A chuckle caught Naruto's attention. "It looks like he likes his new clothes," Sakura laughed.

Naruto beamed at the kunoichi while happy giggling noises filled the silence as the group continued to travel slowly towards Konoha. _'Of course I do, they're orange!'_ Naruto cooed happily.

After about ten minutes being carried, Naruto was so bored he felt like screaming. His team had been walking in silence, occasionally glancing or staring at him with various expressions. The tiny blonde was not the most patient of persons and began trying to come up with something to do, something to keep his mind occupied.

_I wonder if I still have my chakra control._ He thought to himself. Naruto closed his eyes and tried to form the hand sign, but his hands didn't feel right. The boy looked down at his tiny hands and realized that his hands were not cooperating.

'_You have got to be kidding me!'_ Naruto exclaimed. Everyone turned in his direction but he ignored them. _'I can't even make hand-signs!'_ The baby-ninja continued, _'How am I supposed to practice chakra control if I can't make hand signs!'_

"What's wrong now?" Yamato asked exasperated.

Instead of answering, Kakashi studied Naruto's expression closely. A few moments went by before his thoughts were interrupted.

"Do you think that I should carry him?" Sakura questioned her sensei.

Kakashi glanced up then and looked back down at the wide-eyed baby in his arms.

"I think Naruto would enjoy you holding him, Sakura," Sai put in before Kakashi could answer.

Sakura hesitated a moment then walked up to the person she still called her sensei and bent to look Naruto in the eye. "Do you mind if I carry you for a while, Naruto?" She asked gently. To everyone's surprise, Naruto ducked his head slightly and gave what could be interpreted as a small nod. Kakashi stared in surprise for a moment, then mentally shook his head; '_gather all the facts, don't jump to conclusions,'_ he reminded himself.

"I guess that's a 'yes,'" Yamato commented happily.

Sakura let a comforting smile cross her features as she reached for Naruto. Instinctively, the baby blonde reached his chubby arms back towards his teammate. Once he was nestled in Sakura's arms, Naruto clung to the loose folds of the kunoichi's shirt and closed his eyes.

"Finally, some peace and quit." Naruto barely registered Yamato's breath of relief before falling gently to sleep.

**0o0o0**

"Hey there, Tsunade!" A burly voice interrupted the still air in the Hokage's office. Tonton jerked, annoyed at being woken up.

"Jiraiya!" Shizune, who looked up from a pile of papers she and the Hokage were poring over on the desk, sounded surprised to see him.

"What are you doing here?" Tsunade queered. "You're supposed to be tailing the Akatsuki."

Jiraiya held up both hands in surrender. "I know, I know," the white-haired man peaked under one eyelid. "And that's exactly what I'm doing."

Statue stiffness saturated the air.

"…What!" Shizune was the first to locate her voice. "But, that…?" The med-nin took too long in finding her words and was interrupted.

"Who are we dealing with?" Tsunade demanded with quiet authority.

Letting his smile fall, Jiraiya relayed his most current information concerning Akatsuki then stated, "Actually, we're dealing with three problems. The first, of course, is that Itachi is close to Konoha." Tsunade nodded. "The second is Sasuke." Neither kunoichi bothered to hide their surprise.

Shizune's eyebrows stitched together. "What is Sasuke doing out here?"

"Tracking down Itachi," Tsunade stated absently, already deep in thought.

Jiraiya nodded. "Exactly."

Moments later Shizune's puzzled look returned. "If Sasuke is following Itachi…"

Tsunade glanced up from her laced hands and directed her question at Jiraiya. "Where is Itachi heading?"

Jiraiya nodded again. "That's why this is a problem. Itachi doesn't seem to have a destination; he just darts back and forth." The Sannin's expression sparked with another idea. "Almost as if he's keeping just out of someone's radar."

"Hmm," Tsunade mused. "The question is, who's?"

Two full minutes of silence followed as the ninja considered the possibilities.

Shizune decided it would be best to get back to Jiraiya's report and asked, "What is the third problem?"

"Isn't that obvious?" Jiraiya asked. Shizune glanced between the two Sannin who were staring back at her. _'__Of course it's not obvious, that's why I asked,'_ the younger jonin thought, a bit annoyed.

Tsunade almost stifled a sigh. "Who is the person who cares about Sasuke the most?"

Shizune was bewildered by the seemingly-random question but answered anyway, "That would be Naruto."

"Yes," the Hokage continued patiently. "And what would happen if Naruto found out that Sasuke is so close to the village?"

Understanding bloomed across the med-nin's face.

A few seconds later a thought crossed her mind. "Um, then what are we going to do about the Konoha team that should be on their way back?" She knew that there was a team which had been assigned an escort mission and they'd be crossing the forest where Itachi and Sasuke were reported to be darting around. "They'll need to be informed about the situation as soon as possible."

"That's why this situation is such an issue." Tsunade paused in her explanation and Shizune patiently waited for her leader to finish. "Naruto is on that escort mission," she declared finally.

Shizune's eyes went wide as she processed the new information, and the possible implications.

"Should I go meet the team and warn them?" Jiraiya asked, apparently unaffected by the sudden news.

"Unfortunately, no," Tsunade said in an exasperated voice. "I have another task for you since you're here…" Tsunade rummaged in a draw for a roll of paper she had prepared. Finding what she was looking for, she presented the small scroll to the Sage, "I'd like you to complete this mission while you continue gathering information on the Akatsuki."

While reading the document, a playful smile twitched at the Sannin's lips. He glanced up, '_Good, they didn't notice,'_ he thought as he formulated how to word his next sentence. "So does this extra assignment come complete with a free visit to the nearest hot springs?" His gruff voice was smiling grandly.

Ms. Lady Sannin's eyes widened just a nanosecond before her instincts took over. Jiraiya dodged the air-born scroll before taking the hint, as well as his leave. "I'm off then!" He called cheerfully as he darted out of the room. _'Success!'_ He cheered silently, satisfied with the outcome of his little joke.

Jiraiya passed a flabbergasted ninja running toward Tsunade's office, "Lady Hokage!" He was calling loudly. The Toad Sage, noticing that man was from the communications department, became very interested in hearing his report, so the white-haired man slinked his way back down the hall towards the room he'd just escaped from.

"What's the problem?" Tsunade asked in her best Hokage voice. She was determined not to worry about Naruto and his teammates.

"We just received a communication from team Kakashi," the man said in a rush. "Here, the message specifically requested that it be delivered to you immediately."

The 'message' turned out to be one of Sai's ink-birds with Kanji scrawled across every available space updating them on the progress of the mission: "Please present this mission update to the Hokage immediately. We have successfully completed the assigned mission. We've run into some trouble. No back-up necessary as of yet. Kakashi-san has requested that Lady Tsunade and a trusted expert be ready to assess our situation upon our arrival. It is estimated that we return to Konoha late afternoon tomorrow."

"Tomorrow, huh," Tsunade mused.

"Why so late?" Shizune questioned. "Shouldn't they be back later this morning?"

"Hmm, Jiraiya, what do you think about all this?" The Hokage called out the door, blowing the man's cover. Shizune turned her head as the Sage came back in, slightly surprised that the white-haired Sannin hadn't already left to conduct some more of his 'research.' Tsunade handed the ink-bird to Jiraiya to review and waited.

"It's weird that they'd take the time to write a message saying they've run into trouble and yet specifically tell us not to send back-up," the Sannin reported seriously. "And the part about a 'trusted expert'; what kind of expert? And why point out that they must be trusted?"

"Hmm." Tsunade was inside her thoughts. She knew that Jiraiya had assessed the message vaguely because it was a code (and only voiced his assessment out loud because the Hokage had requested him to); Kakashi wanted whatever they were bringing to be kept quiet, and didn't want more than a select few to be made aware of it. The fact that a type of expert was never specified likely meant that they'd run into something that they'd never encountered before… One indisputable fact was that whatever 'it' was, it was slowing them down drastically. _What on earth could it be…?_ It was almost maddening! Tsunade couldn't even _attempt_ to figure out what might be going on since it was highly likely that team Kakashi was bringing 'it' (for lack of a better word and knowledge of the situation) back specifically so she could decide on what to do.

The worn-out leader leaned back in her chair, pressed her fingers to her forehead and moaned. "What is it Shikamaru likes to say?" She tiredly asked no one in particular.

"How troublesome," both Jiraiya and Shizune answered in unison.

**0o0o0**

Kisame walked a safe distance behind his partner. They had been dodging around with no apparent goal, and it was becoming aggravating. The Kiri Nin had tried a few times to get an answer out of Itachi, being as subtle as possible, but to no avail. It wasn't like he had expected an answer; though Kisame could usually figure out a good portion of the plan. This time, however, was proving to be darn near impossible to make any sense of their actions.

The shark-faced ninja didn't like being confused; a sensation he had been experiencing for the past four hours and counting. Usually Kisame kept himself from making too much conversation, but he was getting almost too annoyed to care.

"Itachi," Kisame called, once again attempting to shed some light on the situation, directly this time. The sharingan user made no acknowledgement and kept on walking, as per usual. "Are you going to tell me what we're doin'?" Itachi said nothing, showing no indication of hearing, let alone answering, his partner. "Tch," the Kiri nin muttered under his breath.

Kisame checked to see that their little tag-along was still in pursuit… He was. Just under one hour after Itachi had cast his experimental jutsu, he had sensed the jonin following them. Kisame knew that if a pursuer had caught _his_ attention, then Itachi certainly had already noticed; which meant there was no need to alert the spy that his query was already aware of him by discussing said spy amongst themselves. The two Akatsuki members continued in silence.

After about 45 minutes of walking (yes, walking; not running, not leaping, walking), Kisame felt like his brain was going to cave in on itself. '_Why are we doing this again? That's right, he didn't TELL me!'_ The Akatsuki member fumed silently. He had been mulling over the situation in his head, but it made about as much sense as it did when they first headed out.

The nuke-nin no longer felt the need to check for the spy; he was sure the unknown ninja was out there. But he decided to locate their unwanted audience just to stave off the boredom for a few seconds. . . .

There; found him. Looking up, Kisame was surprised that Itachi was no longer in front of him. He glanced around, '_Oh, there he is. We're changing direction again?_' Dodging back and forth didn't have any benefit whatsoever as far as Kisame could tell: they weren't avoiding anyone since someone had already begun tailing them; they didn't appear to be getting closer to any one village; they had simply _let_ the jinchuuriki escape; they were _not_ going after said jinchuuriki; they didn't seem to be doing anything at all except inexplicably changing direction at random.

Kisame just wasn't sure what they were doing, or sure of anything at the moment. No, strike that, he was absolutely sure that he had no idea what was going through the mind of that raven-haired Uchiha in front of him.

**0o0o0**

The sun was beginning to set beyond the forest and everything was turning a dusty gold. "Why don't we camp here for the night?" Kakashi suggested, which was followed by 'Alright' and 'Sure'. It had been several hours and, much to Yamato's relief, Naruto had stayed asleep the entire time. Sakura looked up at the golden fringe lining the leaves overhead then looked down at Naruto. The medical-nin's eyes widen slightly in pleasant surprise to discover that Naruto's hair was catching the last bit of sunlight and was glowing even more so than the environment. She smiled fondly as she stared for what seemed like minutes, memorizing this moment in time. Sakura could have stayed staring for as long as the sun permitted, but the sounds of her teammates setting up camp called her back to Earth.

Since Naruto was still asleep, she felt it would be ok for her to lean him against a close-by tree while she did her part setting up. The kunoichi located a suitable tree, set Naruto against it (never waking him), used some nearby stones to prop him up, and turned away to help her teammates.

**0o0o0**

Rustling and the sounds of movement woke him up. Naruto opened his eyes in time to see Sakura reaching what appeared to be their camp-site for the night and begin working with the others to set everything up and get ready for nightfall. The little blonde moved as to get up and put in his own share of the work, but his body wouldn't obey. _'What the…'_ Naruto wondered looking down at his body. Seeing his stubby little arms covered in black and orange clothe jogged his memory. _'Oh yeah,'_ Naruto slumped back against the rough surface behind him. _'Stupid Itachi cast a stupid jutsu on me'_ he muttered silently, annoyed. _'I don't think I'll get used to this...'_

A few seconds went by as the unpredictable-ninja pondered what to do, then an almost silent rustle somewhere behind him caught his attention. He glanced at his teammates and, in a fraction of a second, realized that he was the only one who had heard the noise.

Naruto had a sudden thought, '_what if it's Sasuke?' _he wondered. With no more thought on the matter, Naruto twisted and leaned away from the rocks propping him up and tried to stand.

Unfortunately, to Naruto's utter annoyment, his muscles could not comply and he toppled over. Naruto glanced over at his team worriedly. No one had noticed. '_If they see me, someone will probably come and get me,'_ Naruto thought frantically. _'Then I won't be able to go after Sasuke!' _Naruto turned away from his busy friends, squirming and twisting and wiggling, but his muscles were not functioning the way they were supposed to. However, he was determined to go after the sound he had heard only seconds ago. _'Fine then!' _He mentally cried, exasperated. _'If I can't walk, I'll crawl!'_

Naruto wiggled until he had managed to push himself onto his hands and knees. Some part of his brain registered the undignified position he was forced to take but it was easily disregarded. Of all the things Naruto had been in his life, _dignified _was not one of them.

The pint-sized ninja managed to maneuver quickly and crawled his way towards the sound. _'Sasuke,'_ he thought determinedly. _'You won't get away from me this time, teme!'_

* * *

><p>AN: (sis1) – First off, Thanks to new our reviewers LurvirsLuvvie, DoubleAron83, willam and jack and jake, and Miss Light Bright for reviewing! ^^ And thank you to all our reviewers for taking time to leave a message (Bookie, you still make us smile ^^). We have a second re-reviewer! All of your comments made us very happy and helped us plow through our writers block.

We have some sad news, we probably won't be able to write much in the immediate future due to school kicking back in, sis2 being sick, and family getting together for Easter so our next chapter probably won't be up for about a month or so. Sorry guys; but don't worry, we will definitely NOT be pulling a Kakashi. ='( I miss spring break already~~! Some good news is that we have a tentative outline and several scenes planned out, so writing shouldn't take all too long once we can actually sit down and get started.

Some of my own comments about _The Strange Jutsu!;_ I wanted more action, but so far this fic seems to mostly deal with the psychological aspect of the characters.

(sis2) – Yeah, that's where I was heading…

(sis1) – I think now it's where _we_ are heading (sis2 was the one who started us writing this fic. Thank you sis!). At first I thought it was going to be a bit boring, but I'm actually enjoying our fic, even without a lot of action. =] Hope you guys are as well; we've gotten several story-alert and favorite-story notices and it made us very, very happy ^_^ But our favorite ones are the notices that tell us we have a review! Reviews make us feel like our readers are committed to seeing our story through to the end and not just passing by. =^.^=

(sis1/2) – Pleeeeeaaasssee leave a review before you go clicking off into the sunset. We want to know how we're doing! Are we keeping the characters in character? Are there things we could improve on? Did something not make sense? Could there have been more explanation? Was it too wordy? Weird word choice? Do you have a plot or scene suggestions? Any other type of suggestions? We can't improve our writing if we don't get feedback. And if you have nothing to say, leave a review anyway ^.^ Random reviews make us feel good and we go back to re-read them for inspiration when we've got writers block.

See y'all when we get back!


	5. Captured

"All done," Sakura muttered to herself as she surveyed the camp with approval. Her scanning eyes stopped on the baby bag that the kind lady had given them earlier. (Kana was her name if Sakura remembered correctly.) She assessed the pastel blue background spotted with skyblue-winged orange ducks with a smile and she recalled a small baby that was supposed to be a 16 year-old teenager. Who, now that she thought about it, was probably starving since he didn't have anything to eat since he got himself into this mess.

"Sai," Sakura called over her shoulder while turning to her own pack to look for a small pan she remembered packing. "Would you bring me that baby bag so I can prepare the milk Kana gave us to feed Naruto with?"

"Okay." Sakura heard Sai respond after a second.

"Speaking of the little brat, where did you put him down Sakura?"

Sakura turned to Yamato and gave him a questioning look. "What do you mean, he's right over there." She turned to point at the base of the tree she'd just left and froze. Naruto was gone.

Sakura stared at the empty space where a small blond baby should have been, "Oh no…."

**0o0o0**

_Great..._ Sasuke thought as he watched the little blonde toddler franticly crawling around the forest floor. Karin had explained that the thread of chakra extending from his body was connected to that baby. She had also expressed her confusion concerning this fact; apparently it was unheard of to have foreign chakra envelop one's body and connect to a person other than the jutsu's caster. Unfortunately, this situation couldn't be ignored; he had discovered that the hard way.

Even though he was apparently stuck in this undesirable situation, Sasuke could still appreciate the irony of it: Naruto had always been saying how the two of them had an unbreakable bond, and it was looking like he was right. No matter how much Sasuke disliked it, the simple fact remained: he and Naruto were, in effect, tied together.

Sasuke thought back to his conversation with Karin, making sure he hadn't missed something…

_Karin was silent as she inspected the unique chakra signatures, "Hmm."_

"_What is it," Sasuke's voice was more ordering than asking, yet still the calm monotone._

"_I think the chakra thread is connected to the jinchuuriki." Since they were not in direct view of the host, she couldn't be absolutely sure. "But the thread's chakra signature is different than his, so he must have been caught in the jutsu too."_

_Sasuke didn't like her wording: he didn't like to think that he was 'caught' by a jutsu. A jutsu cast by his brother, a jutsu that wasn't even directed at him. "Are you sure?"_

_She knew what her leader was referring to, "I'm 97% sure of it, the thread connects your body to the jinchuuriki's."_

_Sasuke sighed inwardly, but showed no emotion on his face or with his posture. He turned and stared in the direction Karin had been inspecting. After a few moments, Sasuke spoke, "Stay here."_

"_What?" Karin and Suigetsu demanded in unison, they shot each other a glare._

"_I'm ordering you to stay here," Sasuke said simply._

"_And why is that?" Suigetsu inquired starkly, like a teenager demanding for an explanation._

_Sasuke didn't answer him, he simply repeated, "Stay here." And darted away before any other questions could be presented._

"_Well that's just great. Now what are we supposed to do?" Sasuke heard Suigetsu complain far behind him._

It hadn't taken long to locate his target. Sasuke was curious to learn more about this strange jutsu, and most importantly a way to counter it. One thing he had learned so far was that darting away and putting distance between himself and the person he was connected to seemed to make him ill; he wondered if even their nervous systems were connected somehow.

A small prowling presence caught his attention, likely some predator. Sasuke simply did nothing, deciding to wait and see what happened next. Maybe he could learn a little more about the jutsu.

He watched as a slight rustling in the underbrush caught the blonde's attention. As the toddler changed direction toward the faint sound, the sharingan user watched, feigning disinterest for no one in particular. Seconds went by as the little boy crawled toward the sound. Sasuke felt the killing-intent the moment before a small, young wolf pounced on the crawling kid.

A scream of pain erupted from the gaki as the wolf cub dug its fangs into flesh. Suddenly, there was pain in Sasuke's arm. His eyes darted to the place where, judging by the intensity of the pain, a wound should have been. There was nothing. The pain continued, pain as if he himself had just been bitten.

Sasuke glanced back toward the blonde gaki and realized that the kid's arm was bleeding. Sighing, Sasuke leaped to the forest floor, grabbed a small rock, and chucked it at the brown wolf cub. The small animal yelped, released the gaki, and darted away.

Sasuke reproached himself. What was he doing here? He needed to be searching for Itachi's trail. The black-haired young man turned away, not bothering to hide himself from anyone. He ignored the pain-stressed excited voice emanating from the blonde behind him. He ignored the curious, ebbing pain in his arm. He ignored the sounds from the Konoha-nin as they approached the gaki's position. He ignored everything as he darted straight in the opposite direction.

**0o0o0**

Sakura eyed the spot where Naruto had been. She glanced around the camp, panic growing, for any sign of her tiny teammate. He was nowhere to be seen.

"Maybe he wandered off."

Sakura couldn't even think about how obvious Sai's statement was. All she could think about was finding Naruto. "Fan out!" Sakura ordered her teammates, completely forgetting about the chain of command. "He couldn't have gotten far." Her team uttered no questions and showed no hesitation.

"I'll stay at camp," Yamato offered, a slight grin on his face. Everyone nodded their understanding. Sakura was grateful they wouldn't need to waste precious time discussing who would watch camp. Her team darted off to comb the perimeter. Sakura herself decided to search behind the tree she had left Naruto sitting under.

"Naruto! Naruto? Naruto!" Sakura called as she looked behind tree trunks, bushes, and other underbrush for her tiny teammate.

As she rounded a cluster of trees, Sakura thought she could see an orange spot through the trunks several dozen meters away. "Naru―" Sakura pulled up short, eyes widening at the scene in front of her. Naruto was crying out in pain as a young wolf not much larger than Naruto held its jaws around Naruto's arm. Blood splattered the ground.

Sakura couldn't speak, but she was running long before she even realized she could move. Fear plastered itself to her face. Seconds later, Sakura noticed a projectile flying trough the air. The pup yelped, released Naruto and darted off. Still running, Sakura averted her gaze from the toddler to find who had thrown the object.

Sakura's legs suddenly felt like tapioca pudding as she unconsciously slowed; her legs clearly not wanting to hold her weight. She struggled to keep from slumping to the ground. "Sasuke..." She barely breathed.

**0o0o0**

Naruto crawled through dried leaves, twigs, mulchy underbrush, bushes and dirt. He didn't remember it being this difficult to force his way through the forest before. Then again, there was probably a good reason for that.

A rustling sound in the leaves caught his attention. _"Sasuke?"_ The boy thought as he turned to inspect the noise. Glancing around, trying to locate the source, Naruto crawled towards the noise. Suddenly a dog not much bigger than himself charged at him, managing to sink its teeth into his arm before his body had time to react. Well, before his _new_ body could react. _"What the!"_ The blue-eyed boy cried. _"Let go you stupid dog!"_ Naruto yelled, trying to get the dog off of him.

Suddenly the dog let go with a yelp and ran away. Confused, Naruto glanced around and spotted a dark figure turning away. _"Sasuke!"_ Naruto yelled. He almost couldn't believe his eyes; in less than two days, he had seen Sasuke twice! His friend began running away. _"Wait! Sasuke, come back!"_ Naruto tried to crawl after him, but soon remembered the small holes in his arms. Pain shot through his limb and it buckled under him. _"Darn that dog!" _The blue-eyed boy cursed as his face hit the dirt._ "Wait! Sasuke!"_

Sasuke didn't disappear like he normally did; he simply kept running straight. His figure was already appearing smaller in the distance. Naruto started to feel the nausea coming back, but he pushed the sensation away. _"Get back here, Teme!"_

"Naruto!"

_Sakura?_ Naruto turned to see her jogging towards him. He pushed himself back up and somewhere in the back of his mind he hoped that she wasn't too mad about him getting hurt again. _"Sakura, go after him!"_ Naruto hollered. But all he could hear was the sad crying emanating from his core.

Suddenly, the nausea overpowered him and the blonde started throwing up uncontrollably, collapsing to the ground.

"Naruto!" Sakura cried, coming to his aid.

Naruto up-chucked several times, completely emptying his stomach. He looked up when the dry-heaves slowed, trying to find Sasuke. He knew it was futile; Sasuke would already be gone, but the boy looked anyway.

The blue-eyed baby's eyes widened. There on the forest floor was Sasuke. He seemed to have collapsed. Another series of dry heaves forced Naruto to pry his eyes off of his friend.

"What happened?" A calm voice asked behind Naruto, slightly quite from the distance.

"I'm not sure," Sakura answered automatically. "Naruto was injured by a wolf cub, and both Naruto and Sasuke collapsed at about the same time."

"So that body lying defenseless over there is Sasuke?"

Naruto could feel the harsh stare Sakura was shooting at Sai in spite of the convulsions rolling through his body.

"So, what do we do about it?"

"That's a good question, Yamato," Kakashi said. "Any suggestions?" he asked openly but seriously, not removing his detail-observant eyes away from the collapsed nuke-nin.

Naruto could feel the nausea subsiding. _'Ugh. Ok, whatever the heck that is, it is officially getting on my nerves,'_ he thought as he attempted to right himself, his stomach drawn in and tight.

"Sakura," Kakashi began. "Take Naruto back to camp." This was obviously an order.

Sakura knew that Kakashi must have some sort of scheme in mind and she didn't think she liked it. Suspicious of what kind of plot would require that Naruto and herself not be present she asked, "You have a plan, Kakashi-sensei?"

"Yes." She waited, but Kakashi said nothing more.

Fear began to build again as Sakura asked, "You're not going to ki—"

"No," Kakashi interrupted her worrying reassuringly. "Now go," he said firmly.

The command, combined with a satisfying answer, snapped Sakura out of it, "Right!" She acknowledged as she scooped up Naruto and began running back towards camp. Hands, already glowing soft green, cupped around his injured arm.

"_Hey, wait, what are you doing?"_ Naruto exclaimed, not wanting to be carried away from Sasuke.

After about five seconds Sakura had carried Naruto about 30 meters, which intensified the boy's ill condition. Naruto couldn't think about anything except not throwing-up on Sakura. She would kill him if he did that. The little blonde clutched Sakura's vest, eyes pinched shut, desperately trying to control his stomach.

**0o0o0**

Sasuke couldn't move.

His black hair ruffled slightly in the breeze as he laid there on the forest floor doubled-over. His stomach convulsed and heaved in spite of his efforts, but he managed to keep everything contained.

As the tremors began to subside, he went over what he had learned from his experiment: One– Some invisible thread connected him to that gaki; Two– The connection seemed to tie their nervous systems together since when the gaki was bitten he himself also felt the pain; Three– Traveling quickly in the opposite direction seems to cause extreme discomfort and ill effects on the body.

Sasuke felt the nausea slowly creeping away as time passed and his body apparently got used to the sudden distance between the gaki and himself. He was about to raise himself off the ground when he faintly heard the copy-nin call, "Now go." Seconds later, Sasuke was plagued with uncontrollable heaves and his stomach repeatedly expelled its contents.

He wasn't exactly sure what had happened behind him, but he could make a guess. _D*** them._ He cursed before another set of heaves rolled through him, shutting down his thought process.

After the spasms had slowed, and he could focus on his surroundings, quiet footfalls could be heard on the hard earth. _Uhg, great…_ He tried to get up in order to escape, but every attempt he made at movement set off another series of dry-heaves, paralyzing his other muscles.

Sasuke wasn't sure how much time had passed. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt this sick, but he knew enough of Konoha ninja to remember their caution. He must have been lying there longer than he had calculated.

"What do we do with him?" He heard one of them ask in an almost inaudible tone.

"First we immobilize him," responded an equally quiet voice Sasuke knew well.

Sasuke, however, had no intentions of being 'immobilized' and channeled his chakra to every part of his body that was in direct contact with the ground and gave a mighty shove.

Unfortunately, his senses were so jumbled that he couldn't tell up from down as he tumbled in the air. Spotting a tree branch, Sasuke reached to grab it, but missed and tumbled away, smashing through thin limbs and branches on his way back toward the packed, unforgiving earth beneath him.

"Watch it!" He heard the first voice call out.

_Watch it? Watch what?_ Sasuke's muddled brain tried to figure out the strange exclamation.

"I've got him," a new voice stated somewhat blandly when suddenly Sasuke found himself slamming into a blotch of something black. Immediately after that dozens of slithery black ropes seem to wrap themselves around the Nuke-nin's entire body.

"Nice going, Sai," the first voice praised.

Sasuke faced the three ninja, a simple motion since he was in an upright position. He took note of the black ropes and realized that they were snakes. _'I've seen these before_,' he thought with a little effort before giving his utmost attention to the threat in front of him.

"Hmm," the guy with a bland voice, and bland face, began. "For a nuke-nin, he was surprisingly easy to catch."

For some reason, this particular ninja was grating on Sasuke's nerves. He decided to punch the guy's lights out and fought against his bindings to do just that, triggering another fit of dry-heaves.

"Take it easy, Sasuke," his former-sensei soothed, which made him all the more irritated.

Sasuke's strong-will was bombarding him with the desire to fight, but he pushed the feelings back, resigning himself to remain still. He was getting fed up with the bazaar, intense ill-effects on his body, not to mention what they did to his mind. He hated it, hated it more than being immobilized. Closing his eyes, he waited for the intense need to void his stomach to subside.

The Konoha Nin shuffled a bit. "Ok, so now that we have him, what do we do with him?" the man Sasuke had never met asked.

"Now that he is in custody we have to return him to Konoha," Kakashi stated in a you-should-know-this tone of voice.

The un-named ninja made an annoyed sound. "I know that," he declared shortly. "I meant, how are we going to transport him?"

There was a few moments of silence as they deliberated. Sasuke opened his eyes and was now able to get a good look at the new shinobi. He wasn't anything special; just an identifying piece of metal framed his facial features. _A face guard?_ That didn't make much sense since it didn't cover his face. Sasuke's musing was interrupted.

"Let's just get him back to camp for now. We can discuss travel details in the morning."

"Right," Sai and the other one said in unison.

"Sai," Kakashi continued. "Would you make an ink-creature to carry Sasuke?"

"Understood."

Moments later, Sasuke was in a most unfavorable position: sideways between the jaws of a mythical cat with a mane.

Since they were traveling towards the Konoha Nin's camp, and therefore towards the tiny gaki, Sasuke's body was recovering marginally. Sufficient was his returning energy that he felt like scowling at his captors. He tried to move his arms, but they were stuck fast; he couldn't even move his fingers enough to make one-handed signs. This Sai was thorough.

As they walked, Kakashi and Sai headed the group with the mystery-nin guarding Sasuke from the rear and out of sight. He watched as his former sensei gave some instructions to Sai; the raven-haired man strained his hearing but couldn't make out any words. Then Sai gave an almost invisible nod. Not a good sign. Sasuke was sure that whatever they had planned, it likely meant that he'd have no chance of escape considering the copycat ninja and this ANBU-level kid were present. Not to mention the unknown skills of Sasuke's guard, whose name he still didn't know.

Besides, even if he could escape —thanks to this connection between himself and the infant— he wouldn't be able to stray too far from the little brat…

He didn't like it. He didn't like it at all.

It didn't take long to reach the camp. Sasuke surveyed the environment, as he usually did, but stopped when he heard an outright happy scream. He turned toward the sound and found an overly-excited toddler, whose arm was being bandaged courtesy of a duplicate of Mr. Anonymous, cradled in Sakura's arms. Well, 'cradled' wasn't exactly the right word, seeing as how the boy was pushing away from the restraining arms with all his might as he reached towards Sasuke. It seemed to take quite a bit of effort on Sakura's part to keep him from doing a face-plant, while the clone (or the original) did his best to quickly finish tying off the dressing.

"Calm down, Naruto," Sakura was trying to control the gaki before he injured himself further. "Stop it or you're gonna make me drop you." The little orange-and-black clad kid just thrashed all the harder at her words.

Sasuke heard Kakashi sigh openly, "Naruto!"

All heads jerked towards the silver-haired leader; his order for the boy's attention apparently successful.

Kakashi didn't move from where he stood while he addressed the little bundle of energy, "I can see that you are excited to see Sasuke," Sasuke had to stifle the urge to roll his eyes —_'understatement of the month Kakashi.'_ The masked-man continued before Sasuke could realize his mind's little spasm of emotion. "But we need to be efficient in getting the both of you back to Lady Tsunade, got it?"

The gaki, however, didn't get it; for he immediately squawked, fused, and made other obscure sounds. And didn't stop.

Kakashi sighed again.

Sasuke could hear Mr. Incognito back there move It sounded like he put his hands over his ears, which fit with the man's words: "Ugh, not this again…" While the two jounin expressed themselves, Sai remained silent, albeit with no small amount of interest on his face. Sasuke wasn't sure if his recent brush with illness was still affecting his perception, but it appeared to him that Sai, whose half-turned head allowed the pale ninja to keep a watchful eye on their captive, was the only person who remembered their newly caught prisoner at this moment in time.

As if on cue, Sai turned to him and gave a convincing fake smile with eyes to match. "You know, you're the cause of this commotion," he said pleasantly.

Sasuke couldn't keep from showing his reaction. Expressions like surprise, confusion, and 'how-do-I-have-anything-to-do-with-this?' flitted across the nuke-nin's face. Sasuke pushed the emotions away in an attempt to keep them off of his face, but was failing miserably.

A perpetual delighted squeal broke into his self-reproach. He refocused on his surroundings and found the gaki smiling a huge, open-mouth grin and reaching as far as his chubby arms would extend. Reaching for _him_.

"Kakashi," Sasuke heard the nameless shinobi complain again. "Make him stop. I can't take his whining anymore."

Curiosity began taking over his better judgment and Sasuke risked a glance at the copy-nin. To his dismay, said ninja was looking right at him with a calculating gaze. Sasuke watched as his former sensei looked back at Sakura who was fusing over a wiggly blond baby.

"Sakura," Kakashi said drawing attention to himself. "Bring Naruto over here."

She hesitated for a moment, but her answer came. "Hai," she acknowledged as she started for her sensei.

Sasuke didn't like where this was going. He watched as the small baby in the kunoichi's arms started to reach even harder toward him now that the space between them was slightly smaller. The gaki reached so hard that his wiggling had completely stopped. Sasuke tried to put an indifferent expression on his face, but couldn't be sure if that was actually what his facial features showed. Ever since he'd been sick there was very little that he could control; and it bothered him.

He stared as the kunoichi tentatively approached, much too slowly for the infant's taste. His former best friend reached and grabbed, squirmed and wriggled, and reached some more. It was quite a sight. If Sasuke let himself think about it, because of his limited emotional control, he'd laugh outright; and he refused to do anything of the sort. So he focused on an emotion that he knew well: hate. The young man began to literally glower at the little boy, but that didn't deter the gaki in the least. As a matter of fact, it seemed to have the opposite effect as the blond reached more determinedly.

Sasuke watched as Sakura stopped in front of the masked ninja, the gaki sprawled out in her arms like a baby bird trying to fly for the first time.

The nuke-nin began to worry when he saw Kakashi was taking the excited baby out of Sakura's arms. The feeling of dread came when he saw Kakashi walk past Sakura and face him with an eye-smile that caused an involuntarily shiver, an action he profusely hoped that Kakashi hadn't noticed. Unfortunately, 'noticing actions' was something the copy-nin was famous for.

Sasuke eyed his former sensei as the man walked the short distance between them while placing the small bundle of energy on top of one arm and wrap the other arm around the gaki's chest so that he faced forward. He watched helplessly as the ANBU-level jounin placed the small blond in front of his face. Said blond reached out his hands and grabbed a fistful of black hair, while the other tiny hand latched onto his nose.

Sasuke resisted the urge to squint his eyes shut, but he still couldn't completely repress all of his reactions. He shot the brat a narrow, hot glare, which was promptly met with a gleeful smile and chortling.

He stared, annoyed, and still parallel with the ground, at the boy in front of him, only to discover that his annoyance could triple when he saw the obvious smirk displayed by the single eye directly behind the tiny face.

"So, what do we do now?" a voice broke into Sasuke's awareness.

"We have to get back to Konoha," answered the ninja whose name he still didn't know.

"Before that," Sakura began. "Naruto needs to be fed. He hasn't eaten since this afternoon."

Sasuke noted the twilight in the sky, not an especially long time to go without food. But then again, they weren't talking about the same rambunctious, ramen-inhaling, teenager. This here was an infant.

"That's right," the unnamed jounin interrupted Sasuke's brooding. "Let's get the fire going so you can heat something up." The man sounded excited to get a hot meal.

Sakura acknowledged the suggestion, smiling and quickly darting away, with Mr. Nameless tagging along like a pup. Kakashi, apparently done torturing his ex-student, pulled the gaki off of Sasuke's face and tried heading toward the rest of his team, getting no small amount of protest from his bundle. One form of protest included the gaki keeping a death-grip on Sasuke's hair; though the Uchiha did not cry out when his head was pulled to the side, there were a few choice words raging in his head.

"Naruto," Kakashi reasoned, trying to pry the gaki's fingers loose. "He's coming with us, you can let go." The tiny blonde would not be deterred and tightened his grip. Sasuke was not at all enthused about this whole affair.

Sai on the other hand seemed to be openly enjoying the proceedings. A little too much, Sasuke noted.

Kakashi finally got the gaki free and quickly backpedaled to keep the greedy little hands out of reach of a certain someone's black hair.

Sasuke watched as all but Sai clamored toward the camp site, the gaki expressing his displeasure freely.

He kept his eyes and attention trained on his captors. Sai turned and ask "Shall we?" as they started toward camp, with a prostrate Sasuke in tow.

Sasuke's mind began working nonstop to find a way out of this predicament. He didn't think that it would take too much to break free if he didn't wait too long, but there was a small problem: as soon as he took off, he'd just collapse again like he did earlier. Sasuke considered reasons for the sudden shift in the state of his body. The chakra connection definitely had something to do with it, but Sasuke didn't have the same level of chakra-sensing ability as Karin so he couldn't study his condition as much as he would like.

A sudden thought made him stifle an exasperated sigh. He wasn't looking forward to who he'd be stuck with for further study of this unusual situation. Karin on the other hand was guaranteed to have a different opinion.

About fifteen minutes later, the Konoha team, plus one nuke prisoner, were positioned around the small blazing campfire. Sakura and the brat were situated across the fire from him as the kunoichi attempted to feed her fussy charge with a bottle of milk; Sai was seated close-by on his right and Kakashi over to his left; while the last one, Yamato the others had called him, was busying himself serving the stew that Sakura had conjured.

By this time, Sasuke's senses had sharpened back to normal, which was both good and bad. Good because he hated having his senses dulled by anything; and bad because he could now smell all the mouth-watering elements in the stew. Sasuke hadn't eaten since the day before and he could feel his stomach grumbling at him to relieve it of its empty state. Fortunately, the growling couldn't be heard. Yet. He had trained his body to keep silent, but he wasn't exactly sure what his body would do now that he seemed to be stuck in an oddly-emotional state.

Yamato finished serving his teammates and offered Sasuke a bowl, but the young man was determined to get his blank expressions back so he simply stared ahead until the bowl was removed. His stomach, however, had no such inclination and protested as the hot food was pulled away. His two guards both inclined their heads a little, but made no remark.

Sasuke looked down at his bound figure: the ropes across his chest were tied to his securely bound wrists behind his back; his legs were held with bindings fastened around his ankles and lower thighs, just above his knees; and to complete the prisoner look, his body was tethered to the tree behind him. Not to mention several black ink-snakes slithered around, just for good measure.

Looking up, Sasuke made eye contact with the tiny eyes across the camp fire. Those piercing blue eyes. No hint of anger, free from the weight of revenge. Deep, mesmerizing pools that held Sasuke's attention. They seemed totally out of place on the too-small body.

A feminine voice snapped Sasuke out of his trance. "Naruto, you need to eat," Sakura's voice chided gently. "You don't have as much stamina as you did before." A few winning cries answered the kunoichi, but the chibi never took his eyes off of Sasuke.

What on earth did that crazy kid see in him? He had done so many things to the blonde. He'd walked out; they'd fought each other as enemies; he'd betrayed them. He had done just about everything within his power to break the bonds between them. Yet, here he was, his former friend, still claiming that they had a bond even when reverted to an infant he displayed undeniable interest in Sasuke. He stifled the urge to shake his head. The blonde was crazy; that's all there was to it.

Time passed and darkness fell, but when sleep was suggested, the chibi protested. Loudly. Yamato had expressed something slightly stronger than annoyance only to be subject to teasing from his superior. Eventually, though, the kid fell asleep. He wasn't convinced to sleep so much as exhaustion simply took over. Time passed quietly now, Sasuke watched as the fire slowly died and the embers' glow ebbed.

Yamato took the first watch, followed by Sai. As the moon rose, Sasuke continued to contemplate the bazaar situation he was in.

A rustling close-by roused his attention. Glancing over to the source of the sound, he discovered that Kakashi was relieving Sai's watch. The Konoha nin had decided that Sakura would be solely in charge of the gaki and thus exempt from watch duty, and since ninja from the hidden village of his birth tended to have two-hour watches, Sasuke ventured that dawn would come at the end of this watch. After about fifteen minutes of listening to the sound of sleeping people, Sasuke thought he heard some rustling off behind the tree line to his left. A small movement by Kakashi told him that it was not his imagination.

The copy-nin seemed to decide that he should go and check it out. Getting up from his post in front of a tree adjacent to Sasuke's, the silver-haired man maneuvered silently past Sakura and her charge and knelt next to Yamato's sleeping figure. "Hey, Yamato," Kakashi called faintly, shaking the man's shoulder. Yamato, however, was completely oblivious and groggily muttered something about not needing any sugar cubes. Sasuke was beginning to wonder if this guy was any good as a ninja at all. "Yamato, wake up!" Kakashi said more forcefully, keeping his voice low as to not wake up the rest of his team, and shook the man a little harder.

"Ugh, what?" he asked Kakashi in a muddled tone.

Kakashi wasted no time explaining things. "There's a disturbance just outside of camp, I'm going to check it out."

The sleepy ninja yawned and nodded. "Got it, I'll watch things here."

Kakashi acknowledged the statement and cautiously left to inspect the area.

Yamato sat up and began rubbing his eyes with the heal of one hand, murmuring something about never getting any sleep. Sasuke closed his eyelids to hide the rolling of his eyes; this guy was decidedly pathetic.

Mr. Pathetic had sauntered over to the dying fire and stirred it alive, causing flames to dance in the air once again. Not even a minute later the sound of twigs falling out of the canopy caught both of their attention. The disturbance would not have been cause for alarm if it weren't for the fact that Kakashi had just gone to investigate his own set of sounds. Yamato glanced back at Sasuke and declared seriously, "I'll be right back," as he darted off to inspect the noises.

Yup, this guy was a moron. A complete idiot. Not quite up there with Naruto, but getting close.

Naruto…

Sasuke had been avoiding even the mere thought of that name, but now that he'd accidentally let it through, it was darting from one thought-train to another with many questions trailing behind. However, Sasuke didn't get the chance to ponder them, the sound of fabric being dragged along the ground wormed its way into his awareness. Blinking at the black hair in front of his eyes, Sasuke refocused his attention and glanced up.

'_Speak of the devil and he will come to you,'_ Sasuke thought grudgingly for on the ground just beyond the campfire the gaki was doing his best to haul himself out from under the dragging blanket towards him. The brat was half out of the blue blanket that Sakura had securely wrapped him in, his little hands clutching at the dirt, rocks, and fallen-foliage in order to pull himself around the campfire that separated them. Sasuke was vexed by his own thoughts and immediately shut down all cognitive progression; he had almost thought the scene was cute.

When Sasuke was sure that he could keep his mind under control, he opened his eyes only to reveal that the gaki had managed to leave the blanket behind and was in the process of closing the gap between them.

Sasuke stared blankly. The sounds from the fire were hypnotizing. Sasuke automatically focused in on Naruto, memorizing every aspect: the way Naruto crawled, as if he'd just learned how; the way his clothes fit, as if they were borrowed; the way his expressions changed, rotating between glee, hope, and determination until those emotions seemed to merge on his little face; the way those piercing electric-blue eyes held Sasuke's gaze without fear or anger. The raven-haired man couldn't pry his black eyes away. Not that he tried.

He watched as Naruto determinedly closed the space between them. Once within reach, he put his tiny hands on Sasuke's foot and used it to prop himself up on his knees.

The simple gesture snapped Sasuke out of his trance and he deliberately tucked in his bound legs. With nothing to hold him up, the gaki did a face-plant in the dirt. Humor and concern surged through Sasuke's emotional track.

The little infant pushed himself up on his splayed arms and looked at Sasuke. It was all he could do to keep from bursting out laughing, for the tiny face was completely covered in dirt with a lone leave stuck to the boy's forehead. He expected the baby to brush at his face to clean it, but Naruto had a different plan. Instead, the kid left the dirt and continued crawling toward his friend, his brother.

Sasuke wondered vaguely what he could have done in life to deserve such loyalty from this person.

Naruto put one hand in front of the other in his quest to reach Sasuke. Sasuke, on the other hand, was scooting away as much as his bound body would let him; he had no intention of making it easy on the gaki. Alas, when Sasuke could move no further, Naruto reached him. The little gaki pulled himself up onto Sasuke's legs. The Uchiha glared at this pest who was worming his way towards his torso.

Naruto grabbed Sasuke's shirt with both hands, pressed his face against the cloth, and began rubbing the dirt from his face. Sasuke blinked at the sight in front of him. He couldn't believe his eyes; this—this _brat_ was using his clothes as a washrag!

Sasuke, being unable to move, simply waited for the gaki to finish. When Naruto pulled back, most of the dirt was gone with dark streaks across his cheeks and forehead. Sasuke couldn't withhold his grin any longer and it slipped through his protective veneer, but it was re-masked seconds after it escaped. Naruto looked up, missing the grin that flashed across his features, and stared intently into Sasuke's eyes. After a few seconds, the chibi ninja yawned widely, toppling over backwards in the process yet managing to remain mounted on Sasuke.

Naruto rolled onto his side, pinwheeled until his head faced Sasuke, and scooched closer to his friend's warm body. Once Naruto had maneuvered his small frame to wrap around Sasuke's warm figure, he fell soundly asleep.

Sasuke gawked then recomposed his features, silently chastising himself for being surprised that the boy had fallen asleep so quickly. With Naruto asleep and the watchful eyes temporarily distracted, Sasuke looked at Naruto. Actually _looked_ at him. His charcoal eyes traced over the three identifying lines on both cheeks. The boy's eyes made no motion indicating dreams, his breathing was slowing slightly yet remained quick. His face was obviously smaller and looked younger, but Sasuke was surprised at how little his face had changed.

Naruto made a content sleepy sigh and pressed his face comfortably into his torso. Sasuke wouldn't admit it to anybody, but he actually liked the reassuring pressure the tiny body created.

"Stupid squirrels," a quiet voice behind the trees stunned Sasuke back to Earth. He'd completely forgotten about the moron. Sasuke immediately closed his eyes, forced his muscles to relax, and slowed his breathing until he could pass for a sleeping body.

Yamato rustled into the camp, again mumbling something about missing sleep, and made the embers in the fire crackle. A sudden tension in the air told Sasuke that Yamato had switched to ninja mode.

So the idiot could be alert when the situation required it.

A few uneasy seconds later Yamato relaxed. "Kakashi, find anything?"

"Just a badger den."

Sasuke didn't like having his eyes closed around the ex-ANBU, but he wasn't about to be caught 'awake' with the gaki on his lap. Of course, he couldn't be entirely sure that Kakashi hadn't already noticed his farce.

Some more shuffling sounds near the campfire indicated that Yamato was rummaging through something. "Where's Naruto?" the man asked abruptly.

This was the part Sasuke was dreading, the part where his captors found the gaki and made assumptions.

It occurred to him that, before he had gotten caught in this accursed jutsu, he wouldn't have cared what anyone assumed.

Frantic movement grabbed Sasuke's attention. The moron must have begun to search for Naruto without thinking. "Yamato," Kakashi said quietly. The noises stopped.

A few moments later an answer came forth. "Well, would you look at that," the man's voice clearly held a smile. Sasuke could just imagine what they saw, but he decided to send that train-of-thought into a brick wall.

Sasuke allowed his mind to remain blank in an effort to continue with his façade.

After a few minutes or so, sounds of the night began to filter through. Yamato must have gone to bed. Kakashi was likely back at his post. Sasuke began to feel the pull of sleep, and the oddest sensation washed over him: he felt content. Even bound and tied to a tree, Sasuke was comfortable, and effortlessly fell asleep.

* * *

><p>AN: Woo Hoo! Finally got the next chapter Up! ^^ Sorry it took us so long, but this chappy is a little extra long this time so we hope that it makes up for it =] We've also discovered the joys of re-reading our own writing =P We've been cracking ourselves up over and over again!

Thank you to all our reviewers! ^-^ We can't stress enough how much your reviews make us get excited and joyful !

As for the next chapter (6), . . . it might be late. *depressed* We seem to have MAJOR writers block on this one and classes/work/family/finals/graduations aren't helping.

On a different note, no bad cliffhanger this time! =) And if you're one of those people who do consider this a cliffy, let us know. We'd just love to hear from ya! =]

And as always; read, review, enjoy, review, comment, review… hint, hint ^.^

Sis1: We are trying to become better writers and feedback is absolutely necessary for this process *nods*

P.S.  
>There is a way for authors to respond to reviews, isn't there? Help please, we be confused.<p> 


	6. What the heck?

Naruto woke coughing, voiding his lungs of some liquid. He discovered that he was lying on his stomach with his face in a shallow pool of water ―along with the rest of his body the blonde noted as he did a mental check of his physical condition.

"Uhng," he moaned, pushing himself up on all fours, coughing a couple more times. "Where am I?" The rippling drops of water dropping off his clothes were the only other sounds.

Looking around, he could see that it was dim, dank, and downright dreary. He was in a corridor with a familiar pattern lacing the walls. _'Oh, I'm in my head,'_ the blonde thought with some trouble. His mind felt muddled and hazy.

The teenager attempted to stand up but suddenly felt dizzy and stumble against the wall.

Naruto stabilized himself and slowly walked down the hall towards where Kyuubi would be.

Reaching the featureless court in front of the kitsune's cage, Naruto walked out into the open. Once there, however, he didn't know what to do.

"**Did you come looking for answers?**" the fox growled.

"What?" Naruto blanked, puzzled by the unexpected question.

"**Don't bother me brat.**" The fox's statement was firm, annoyance lacing every word.

The boy became curious at the fox's aggravated tone and a mischievous grin spread across Naruto's features. "What's wrong, Kyuubi?" Naruto teased lightly moving his hands to his hips and tilting his head. "Fox got your tongue?" The boy held a wide smirk.

The Kyuubi let a low rumbling snarl escape him. "**It just so happens-**" the fox began, hissing the words. "-**That your stupid chakra is making me lethargic.**"

Naruto blinked. "What?" He dropped his arms, thoroughly confused. "My chakra's doing what?"

The nine-tails seemed in an especially sour mood and sighed heavily. "**Your chakra is especially oppressive right now,**" he huffed, irritated. "**Now go away and let me sleep.**"

The boy balked. Seeing the blonde's confusion, Kyuubi decided to repeat himself. After all, finding an explanation that the idiot understood was the easiest and fastest way of convincing the brat to leave.

"**Your chakra is stifling,**" the fox stated grudgingly.

"...Why would that be?" Naruto was perplexed by this information.

"**Because you got yourself turned into an infant, idiot!**" The fox sounded like he was accusing Naruto of some horrible crime. Ironic coming from the being who could have ―and attempted― to wipe out Naruto's entire village.

"It wasn't my fault!" the boy shot back. "Itachi ambushed me!" Then Naruto processed the fox's words. "Wait, what did you just say?"

"**You're and idiot.**"

"No, not that. The part about getting turned into a baby. Why would that affect _you_?"

The fox didn't answer.

"Kyuubiiii !" Naruto called, almost wining the fox's name.

A low rumbling emitted from behind the large gate.

"Why is my chakra suddenly different?" Naruto pressed when the kitsune didn't answer.

A few seconds later the response came. "**Because your chakra has reverted to its raw state,**" the demon snarled.

Naruto blinked, bewildered. "Raw?" he repeated, baffled. "I don't get it."

His tenant growled out another sigh. "**Why do you think that I was sealed inside you while you were an infant?**" Kyuubi was about to continue but was interrupted with an answer to his rhetorical question.

"Because I was available," Naruto said matter-of-factly, betraying no emotion.

The fox didn't acknowledge the statement as it was unimportant and continued. "**It's because when a human is born their chakra is undeveloped and in its raw state, therefore it automatically protects the newborn from nervous- and chakra-system threats; such as viruses, illness, and foreign chakra.**" Kyuubi clarified. "**However, when a human develops their coils and control, their chakra is refined and usually loses its ability to perform automatically.**" Naruto scrunched up his features, clearly considering a thought, but Kyuubi pressed on with his explanation, eager to rid himself of the boy's insistent questions. "**In other words, your chakra system has reverted to its unrefined state due to the jutsu you were caught in, and it is suppressing my own chakra in a rather efficient manner,**" Kyuubi bitterly bit the last few words.

Naruto remained silent for a few seconds before voicing his thoughts. He wanted to point out that Gaara's sand protected him automatically and it was controlled by chakra, but he needed to stay focused if he was going to get answers. But before he could even begin to form his question, the blonde's vision blurred and he felt consciousness tugging him away from the inner workings of his mind.

'_Uh, no, wait…'_ He still wanted more information, but he couldn't find his voice. The fox was saying something; he sounded almost… anxious. But that couldn't be right. Naruto's fuzzy vision was beginning to blot out and eventually everything went white.

Naruto woke up crying like his life depended on it.

**0o0o0**

The first thing the young man became aware of was the sound of demanding crying. Nonetheless, his mind felt comfortable, which slightly worried him. After all, _comfortable_ was a sensation he had scarcely felt in the last three years. Slowly, his mind found the path back to consciousness, and he opened his eyes sleepily.

His head had been hanging forward and the first thing to fill his eyes was the still-wrapped-around-his-torso Chibi; the picture framed by his dark hair. Said chibi was crying up a storm and sounded very much like something needed to be done about _something_.

Sasuke raised his head to discover why someone hadn't silenced the kid.

His head jerked back in surprise ever so slightly at the scene in front of him: every single Konoha Nin was staring at him and the gaki. He couldn't believe himself, he had actually slept through the entire team waking up and getting ready to depart. The sun was just rising and, from the look of it, most of the team had woken no more than five minutes ago, but he was still irked with himself for not stirring awake.

After about eighteen minutes of the gaki's wines, blubbers, screams, and tugs on his shirt, Sasuke wasn't sure his sanity could take any more. Swallowing his pride in favor of keeping his emotions relatively in check, Sasuke voiced his question, "Will someone deal with this?"

The sound of the Nuke-nin's voice seemed to shock everyone, save Kakashi and Sai. Even Naruto had momentarily stilled, but the boy soon returned to protesting against whatever it was that made him so unhappy.

Kakashi, however, looked more like he had won a bet rather than surprised that Sasuke had commented on the situation.

Sai seemed to be perpetually interested in the goings-on around him.

Sakura was the only one to actually make a move. She walked over to the kettle situated over the freshly-kindled campfire and poured some of the steaming contents into a bowl and began blowing on the foaming white liquid. After maybe a minute, she seemed content with the temperature and poured it into a bottle.

The pink-haired woman started walking toward him and the kid —no doubt to take the gaki away and feed him— but it seemed that Kakashi had a different plan in mind as he intercepted his student, a mischievous glint in his exposed eye.

Sasuke allowed an internal heavy-sigh to subdue him. Like he needed any further subduing; within the last two days he had gotten himself caught-up in his brother's jutsu, captured by the enemy, restrained by someone presumably younger than him, humiliated by an infant, and was now subject to his former-sensei's strange impulses to achieve Kami knows what.

Sasuke waited, having no choice to do anything else as he remained bound and tethered, for Kakashi to get on with it.

Naruto hadn't even noticed the jounin's approach and jerked when the bottle was placed in his open mouth.

"There, Naruto," Kakashi said. "Eat up."

Kakashi didn't let go of the thermos as the blonde inspected the object that had been stuffed into his mouth. Moments later Naruto glared at the bottle, which made Sasuke mentally snigger. The raven ignored everyone as his mind focused on the insanely odd situation unfolding right before his eyes.

Sasuke could just imagine what the gaki must be thinking, _"What is this? Where's my bowl of ramen?"_

The crazy thought was enough to make the normally-brooding-boy unable to reign in a chuckle.

A few eyebrows raised and heads turned in his direction.

Suddenly feeling self-conscious —and once again annoyed with himself— Sasuke attempted to slap his mask back on his face, but he could feel that something showed through. Not willing to be the subject of entertainment any longer, he closed his eyes and began wiping away all emotion and thoughts that had been present moments ago.

Movement on his lap grabbed the Uchiha's attention and he opened his eyes to look at the source. Naruto was thrashing against the bottle, trying to get it out of his mouth, yet kept a firm grip on Sasuke's clothes. "Naruto, you need to eat," Sakura cooed in an attempt to make the infant see reason. Sasuke almost rolled his eyes at the idea of reasoning with a toddler.

"Sorry, kid, but you just can't eat anything else," Kakashi said pointedly. "Your body wouldn't be able to take it." He sounded like he was explaining this to the sixteen-year-old rather than the infant.

Naruto stopped thrashing, only to stick out his tongue underneath the bottle and scrunch up his eyes in a decidedly 'yuck' face.

Sasuke remembered that Naruto didn't have a problem with milk, at least he had heard about his ex-teammate downing half an expired-carton of the stuff, so it didn't make sense to him why the boy was having a problem drinking it from the bottle. Oh. That was the problem: it was in a bottle. Sasuke decided to keep his insight to himself, he definitely wasn't about to give the scarecrow in front of him anything else to hold against him, so he remained silent.

"Come on, Naruto, just drink it," Yamato moaned.

'_Like that's going to happen,'_ Sasuke thought to himself.

After a few moments of Naruto plainly refusing to cooperate, Sai voiced a suggestion. "Sasuke-san, why don't you try asking him to drink it?"

Sasuke was so shocked by the proposal that he sat frozen, a condition the body was fervently trained to never get trapped in. But there he was, unable to think, move, breath, or blink. If it hadn't been for the disapproving sound that emanated from his lap, Sasuke might have remained like that until he passed out from lack of oxygen.

Glancing down (and restarting his respiration), charcoal eyes were met with hyper-blue irises. Those eyes seemed to pin him to the very tree he was already tied to. Sasuke blinked the moment Naruto turned his head and broke eye contact. The Uchiha mentally shook his head, he was going to have to stop making eye contact if he was going to react like that.

Naruto looked at Sai and made some sort of annoyed babbling noises, the kid then turned to Kakashi and repeated the process with a few wining interjections, then he turned back to Sasuke. The raven blinked, staring at a point on the gaki's forehead in an attempt to not make eye-contact. _'Now what?'_ he wondered, not sure that he wanted to know and waited for the gaki to do something. The little boy on his lap, however, did absolutely nothing, just laid there staring up at him, waiting —expectant_—_ Sasuke realized. Did he seriously want Sasuke to request that the boy drink the milk? Sasuke was so exasperated that he let out a quiet groan.

A few seconds later Sasuke turned away and spoke. "Gaki," he said almost inaudibly, reluctantly. "Drink."

Silence reigned.

There was absolutely no way that Sasuke was going to give the Konoha Nin the satisfaction of facing them, so he sat unmoving and waited for something to happen.

After a few seconds Sasuke could hear the sound of liquid being swallowed. He looked down and saw that Naruto still looked none too happy, but he was drinking.

A few swallows later, Naruto's expression shifted from reluctant to surprised. It seemed that the little brat had realized he was actually hungry and began to drink more fervently. One tiny hand moving to hang onto the bottle, the other remained firmly clamped onto Sasuke's shirt.

Not a word was uttered in fear of the gaki rejecting his only (current) form of sustenance.

Kakashi discretely propped the bottle up on Sasuke's chest while Naruto laid there enjoying the liquid's warmth in the chilly morning air.

At this moment in time, Naruto appeared to be absolutely content; he had closed his eyes and was drawing the white froth into his mouth blissfully.

**0o0o0**

Naruto couldn't believe his taste buds, this stuff was… _good_. Not quite as good as ramen —nothing could ever be as good as ramen— but it was not too far behind. He couldn't figure out why it tasted so much better than he remembered.

Memories of old times reminded chibi blonde that he had just followed the suggestion of his arch rival: drinking the milk. A little mortified, he started to tell Sai and Kakashi off for suggesting such an outrageous thing, but then found himself unreasonably curious as to whether or not Sasuke would actually ask him to drink.

But that train of thought could wait. Before he boarded any more trains he was going to enjoy his drink to the last drop.

Closing his eyes in utter ecstasy, the little blonde subliminally reached for the warm container full of food while keeping a firm hold on Sasuke.

He had a delicious drink in one hand and his best friend in the other, what more could life offer?

Naruto felt the bottle shift a little, but he was able to follow it easily and continued drinking, dully aware that shuffling and other sounds of movement were floating around the campsite.

After what seemed like only a few minutes Naruto realized that he had finished the creamy-goodness, but he kept pulling the nonexistent liquid into his mouth. He could still enjoy the memory of the yummy stuff flowing over his tongue, after all.

Naruto didn't think that he could ever get tired of reliving the sensation of drinking the milk with Sasuke right next to him, but he figured that since time didn't seem to mean anything to him at the moment, and he did want to get Sasuke back to the village, he should probably get himself ready to leave.

The little blonde stopped sucking, opened his eyes, and discovered that Sasuke was studying him. Naruto beamed a bright smile —that only he could display— at the sullen person in front of him. Said person looked as though he'd just been shocked out of a too-real daydream.

Naruto eyed him, slightly concerned at his reaction. Sasuke appeared to be annoyed at being caught off-guard and glowered. This action only succeeded in producing more bright foxy grins and some happy chortling, which alerted the team.

**0o0o0**

Sasuke was, yet again, annoyed with himself. This time he'd been unfocused on his surroundings and the gaki had noticed. So he glared at the kid, who only made that little face of his stretch in an almost-unnaturally wide grin and he made some stupidly happy sounds. The teams attention was effectively snatched.

"It would appear that Naruto has finished his milk," Sai commented. "Shall we be going then?" he asked, turning to the team's captain.

But before Kakashi could get a word out, Yamato voiced a concern. "Are we sure it is safe to travel in such a big group, especially with a prisoner and Naruto in the condition that he is?"

Kakashi seemed to consider these facts and then made a decision.

"Having a prisoner is going to slow us down further," he stated. "And we need Lady Tsunade to inspect Naruto as soon as possible."

This statement instigated a debate among the Leaf Nin on what would be the best course of action —Sasuke strained his hearing, as the ninja had floated out of earshot, but couldn't quite make heads nor tails of the syllables he caught.

"Okay," the copy-nin concluded when they had made a decision. "Sakura, why don't you and Yamato go on ahead with Naruto whil—"

"No!" Sasuke blurted out before he could think, effectively cutting Kakashi off. He really, really didn't want another round of the separation-sickness (as he had dubbed it for lack of a better phrase); still he regretted opening his jaws. Everybody stopped, startled, and stared at him with different levels of surprise and curiosity. Sakura seemed too shocked to move. He made a self-conscious sound and amended, "Ah, never mind," he countered himself quietly, deciding to shut his mouth before his foot found the opening. _D*** it all!_ What was wrong with him? He had never in his life had so much trouble keeping his own expressions, emotions, and reactions from getting loose. Why was it happening now? Never mind, he thought he knew the answer to that. _D*** him_, he cursed again. Sasuke wanted revenge on the caster of his predicament now more than ever.

**0o0o0**

"Uwaaa!" Naruto was crying and he didn't even know why. The only thing he knew was that one minute he was watching his team put their backpacks on and the next his body was extremely uncomfortable. He started whimpering —without ever giving his body permission— and then a full out wail ensued.

Sai, who was closest to him, bent down to inspect the infant. "What's wrong, Naruto?" The pale ninja sounded like he was attempting to tell a joke. "I thought you'd be happy sitting on Sasuke's lap."

But Naruto barely heard him. Something near his lungs hurt like hell. He didn't want to cry out loud; he was used to hiding his pain and making sure that his comrades knew as little of his suffering as possible. But now his usually-controlled body was screaming up a storm.

"Is he ok?" Yamato asked worriedly. "He sounds like he's dying."

Naruto clutched at Sasuke's garment; the bubble of stabbing pain in his chest was getting unbearable! The little blond wriggled his body trying to find a position that didn't feel like a kunai was stuck in his stomach.

"Come here, Naruto," a soft, motherly voice said reassuringly. Naruto was suddenly lifted up and placed over a shoulder where his back was promptly, and firmly, patted.

An unknown amount of time —a too long amount of time— passed before Naruto suddenly released an embarrassing series of belches.

Moments later he felt blissfully relieved.

'_Whoa,'_ he thought with wonder. _'That was _awesome_!'_

A few seconds of silence followed.

"What was that?" Yamato asked, genuinely confused by the whole episode.

Sakura answered him with the air of a sensei. "Sometimes gas bubbles get stuck in a baby's stomach. Infants are unable to burp on their own; their muscles have not yet learned how to do that. Therefore, when a baby needs to burp, they start crying because the bubble applies pressure to their organs and is painful." Naruto blinked at the Iruka-ness of her explanation.

Yamato lifted an eyebrow. "Huh. You know, Sakura, you know a lot about babies," he praised.

"Not really," she denied blushing a bit. "I only know a little that I learned from the medical books Lady Tsunade gave me. They weren't very detailed when it came to infants."

"Speaking of Lady Tsunade," Kakashi interjected. "We need to get these two to her as soon as possible."

Naruto wriggled and squirmed as the adults conversed on what would be the best mode of transportation for himself and Sasuke. Sakura eventually set him down, allowing him to wander back to Sasuke's side. _'"Adults?"'_ he repeated scowling. _'Great, now I'm even thinking like a kid!'_ After all, he had done a lot of growing up in all his sixteen years.

Reaching the raven, Naruto maneuvered his body to sit comfortably. This time he didn't climb onto Sasuke's lap. Instead, he leaned his back against his friend's leg and sat on the ground watching his teammates continue their discussion.

After about 20 seconds, though, he was thoroughly bored. Sasuke's muscular leg twitching uncomfortably behind him and he hoped that they'd be able to remove the bindings soon.

Suddenly a black ink-snake slithered over Naruto's ankle and he screamed like a… well, like a baby.

"_WHY DO THESE THINGS KEEP HAPPENING TO ME?"_ He shrieked —of course garbled syllables were the only thing anyone could make of his exclamation. Naruto's screech was reduced to hiccupping whimpers in a matter of moments —_"Kami forbid if I have one normal day~!" he had wined_— and in that amount of time everyone became thoroughly alarmed.

"Ok, that didn't sound normal," Yamato stated worriedly.

"The slithering blotch scared him," Sasuke informed them matter-of-factly.

Accusing eyes shot at the responsible party.

"What?" Sai questioned with fake innocence.

No one answered.

Naruto, unable to stop his whimpering, sighed internally. _'Baa-chan better be able to fix this…' _he complained.

Half an hour later the team was back on course, and Naruto was none too happy with his current placement. Kakashi-sensei had picked him up initially. But then he had cheerfully been dumped on Yamato, who had passed the blonde off to Sai. Naruto did not like being hot-potatoed between his teammates, but the feeling paled in comparison the utter distain he felt for the situation Sasuke had been placed in.

At that time, even though he knew that his sensei was probably right, he seriously felt like punching somebody.

"_You got it," Yamato acknowledged his superior's command and immediately began a series of hand signs. Seconds later a wooden wagon was growing out of the ground, complete with an Asian-style roof. The cart looked like a large cube was meant to fit into its interior. "How's that?" he asked proudly._

_Kakashi stared at the newly formed structure with an expression that said "you really like to overdo things, don't you?" It was amazing how the scarecrow managed to proficiently express himself with only one-third of his face exposed._

"_What?" Yamato challenged self-consciously._

"_No, it's… fine," Kakashi didn't sound all too sure of himself._

_Yamato picked up on his tone. "If it's too much then I can just change it," he said as he brought up his hands._

_Kakashi put a hand out to stop him. "It's fine, Yamato," he stressed. "Just finish up."_

_Yamato eyed his captain for a few seconds, just to be sure. Satisfied with what he saw, he walked over to Sasuke and ran through a second series of signs. _

_This wood-style moved faster than the first. The wooden arms wrapped around Sasuke's wrists and ankles, forcing the standing man to his knees, and a successive pair of wooden limbs surrounded his neck and abdomen as his entire body was surrounded by a wooden cage. Then Yamato used his jutsu to lift the cage and place it into the wagon's stronghold, where a paper seal was placed on every corner. _

_Sasuke looked about as happy to be confined as Naruto was to see him there; both boys glared at Yamato and Kakashi in turn. Sasuke was pointedly ignored while Naruto's expression went unnoticed._

_Kakashi turned toward Sai as he said, "Ok, we're ready."_

_Sai nodded and quickly drew something on his scroll that came to life the moment it was finished. The ink-creature —which looked like a tall, slender lion— walked over to the front of the cart and stood between the axles to be hitched._

After that the team had finished getting ready and resumed traveling on the road that would take them home. Naruto, However, didn't have any more time to brew.

Kakashi, who was in the lead, put up a silent hand signaling a stop. Instantly the team was ready for action. Sai quickly and discretely passed Naruto to the Irounin since medical ninja were _supposed_ to remain as uninvolved in a conflict as possible. Like that rule had ever stopped the pink-haired kunoichi.

Stretching their senses to pick up on where the threat might be aimed from, the ninja prepared for an attack. Naruto also stretched his senses but, being in the state that he was, could not extend them much farther than around his team. He cursed under his breath for his uselessness.

Kakashi made a motion and Naruto refocused.

The copy-nin gave Yamato and Sai a pointed look and they disappeared. Sakura held Naruto protectively close as seconds of tense silence ticked by.

**0o0o0**

The orange-maned man sat unfocused with a tree to his back; the forest felt dim and melancholy regardless of the crisp morning air and sun rays dancing among the canopy. Jugo couldn't even smile at the birds now perched on his shoulder as he sat with pretzeled-arms resting atop his knees. He was worried about Sasuke; he was worried that they wouldn't find him before he started on a rampage again; he was worried that the remaining members of team Hebi might kill each other before they found him.

They had gone after him after realizing that he was too late coming back; there was no way that Sasuke wouldn't return before nightfall, lest his team murder each other. Therefore something was wrong and they had headed out. It had taken some prodding on Jugo's part to get Suigetsu to join them, and a bit of coxing to keep Karin from launching too many verbal attacks on the nuke-nin.

But in the end, they all managed to work together and track their captain down, and discovered that he'd (somehow) been captured. Unfortunately, the Copy-cat ninja was among the group from Konoha and had noticed their approach. Jugo had convinced some badgers to cooperate and successfully diverted the threat, but that tactic forced team Hebi to retreat and hide.

Jugo, spaced out as he was, didn't hear Suigetsu approaching and jerked when a hand was placed on his shoulder.

"Hey, answer me," Suigetsu demanded mildly. With an uncertain stare he asked, "You aren't going to freak out on me are you?"

Jugo looked up and stared at his teammate blandly. "…I don't know…" he said after a bit. Lowering his head, Jugo continued spacing out.

Several silent minutes went by without interruption.

"Ok, I can't take it anymore!" Suigetsu cried exasperated. Jugo jolted, surprised by the sudden sound. "We are going to go rescue Sasuke, right now!" The ninja declared.

Karin wore the same shocked expression Jugo was now sporting. "_**You**_ want to go rescue Sasuke?" Karin asked disbelievingly. For the first time since they'd discovered that their leader had been imprisoned, Jugo's eyes lit up with hope.

"Well, not exactly…" Suigetsu drolled with a mischievous grin on his face.

Jugo was now confused, didn't he just say that he planned to rescue Sasuke? Now he _didn't_ want to?

"What?" Karin burst out Jugo's question. "What do you mean '_not exactly'_?"

"I mean that we could get ourselves captured along with Sasuke."

The kunoichi and Jugo were speechless.

Jugo thought the man looked pleased with his explanation.

"What kind of nonsense are you spouting?" the read-head cried tersely.

Jugo turned back to Suigetsu for an answer, but Karin wasn't done.

"How will getting ourselves captured help us rescue Sasuke?" she yelled. "Gah! You're such an idiot! That is the stupidest idea I've ever heard!"

"I am _not_ an idiot!" Suigetsu retorted, hurrying to finish before Karin could rampage again. "And my plan isn't meant to rescue Sasuke!"

"Um," Jugo said quietly. They needed to stop before…

"Oh, so now you're abandoning our leader?" Karin shot hotly.

"No! I—"

"You always wanted to get rid of Sasuke, didn't you?" she stormed.

"Uh, wait," Jugo tried again, but his team couldn't hear him over their own voices.

Suigetsu grabbed Karin by the shoulders —something he never did— in order to make her shut up for a second. The momentary shock of physical contact was all he needed. "I'm trying to get Jugo here-" jerking his head in Jugo's direction, "-to Sasuke because if he snaps we can't stop him!"

They both glanced at the animal-lover.

After about four seconds of tense muscles loosening, Jugo saw Karin look back at Suigetsu with a sigh. "So, what's the plan?"

Jugo let out his own sigh of relief.

A bird landed on his shoulder with a chirp. The orange-haired man listened to the bird for a second before blinking in surprise. "Uh, guys, we're not alo—" but a kunai pressing against his throat cut him off.

"Don't move," the stranger commanded from Jugo's back. And he obeyed; silently pleading that his urge to kill would remain dormant.

* * *

><p>AN: We're late and we're sorry! After RL got out of the way, we found ourselves floundering. For some reason this particular chapter was really hard to write (we've discovered that Jugo is really hard to write). Another reason for our late update would include our beta leaving the state ―crossing the country― and therefore is out of action. That's right, this chapter is un-beta-ed, and we hope we didn't do too bad a job fixing it up.

Sis1: Sorry to anyone who might have had trouble finding our fic when we changed the summary, I had this weird urge to come up with a different summary for some strange reason and my silly sis let me go through with it.

Sis2: It's not like we couldn't change it back.

Sis1: Yeah, but one of our regular reviewers got lost and I felt like I was responsible for that...

Sis2: Oh pish posh, get back to the author's note.

Sis1: =] Got it. So where were we, ah- A note I wanted to make for the scene in a previous chapter ―the one where little-Naruto is bleeding after being bitten― I don't think anyone actually caught the significance of an infant bleeding but infants only have about two pints of blood in their entire bodies, therefore Naruto losing blood is somewhat of a big deal.

BTW, the thing about an infant's chakra being in a raw state, that's completely made up and we have no idea if that would actually work in narutoverse.

So how did we do? Is our writing improving?

Sis2: Feedback, guys, feedback! We must have feedback or we get stuck, which results in, you guessed it, late chapters.

Sis1: Speaking of feedback, does anyone have a guess as to what Itachi is doing? *mischievous smirk*

Sis1&2: Don't forget to type a message for us in that little box down there! Remember that reviews are a reader's best friend =] And great motivation for the author(s) =D Not to mention inspiration often sprouts from comments, critique, constructive criticism, suggestions, opinions, and one(or 100)-word-notes.


	7. Introduction

"Don't move," he said blandly, obviously expecting to be obeyed. The pink-haired woman tensed, clutching the infant tightly to her but otherwise complied, as expected.

Itachi waited, the kunai in his hand pressed against the woman's jugular artery, for the jinchuuriki's response to the situation. The infant's eyes were filled with fearful shock, but he made no movement; almost as if his own throat was the one in danger.

The elder Uchiha could feel the sakki emanating from the wooden crate a few yards away but he ignored it.

Itachi was patient as he waited for the blonde to show signs of recognition. He was looking for evidence to support his theory: that the jinchuuriki's mind had not reverted along with his body. Fifteen seconds went by with absolutely no change. The infant continued to stare as if his life depended on it, fear filled azure eyes glued open. That reaction was of little use since it could support both his theory and the contrary.

The pink haired woman turned her head a fraction of a degree and asked, "What do you want?" Her voice was terse, waiting for an honest reply. Itachi, however, had no intention of broadcasting his goal.

"I was looking for the jinchuuriki," he lied smoothly. "But it appears you have your hands full." She said nothing. Itachi glanced over the woman's shoulder at his tiny target. Eyes were the window to one's soul. Calculating sharingan met petrified blue irises, reveling only frozen apprehension and alarm. He was reacting exactly as an infant should.

As if to prove this, his sapphire eyes suddenly began to well up and tears poured down the infant's face as he started sniveling. Two seconds later the blonde was wailing mercilessly while the kunoichi shushed and begged the boy to be quiet. Itachi decided to use the distraction to ensure that the jinchuuriki found its way back to him. Bringing up his free hand, Itachi flashed through the one-handed signs and applied the condition-activated jutsu to the woman without her knowledge.

Finished with the current steps in his plan, Itachi simply disappeared. Leaving a confused kunoichi, a raging caged Uchiha, and a screaming infant.

0o0o0

The moment he realized that someone was in his peripheral, Kakashi knew that something was off. There were two— no, three of them, and they were not even bothering to conceal their chakra or presence. He had immediately stopped his team and readied for an attack. But the ninja he'd detected didn't advance, and it bothered him.

It wasn't really the fact that the ninja were static that had him on-edge —since it would make perfect sense for a ninja who is displaying their chakra like a homing-beacon to remain stationary and prepare a trap— it was the fact that he couldn't come up with a single logically-sound explanation for _all_ of them to reveal themselves, especially since Konoha's gates could just be seen from the road.

As they leapt towards the strangers, Kakashi considered all the possible scenarios he could think of to explain the situation. _'Why would the enemy simply expose themselves? A trap seems the most likely reason. Though only inexperienced shinobi would make the mistake of showing their numbers. It's possible they're a patrol squad from Konoha, but I was unaware of a change in the patrol routes… A genin team? No, these ninja possess too much chakra. _Unconcealed_ chakra. What would be the purpose of not masking their chakra? Luring us out would be an obvious assumption; but we are so close to Konoha that engaging us here would only serve to alert the village which would send a team out within ten minutes.'_ Kakashi couldn't help but feel like he was missing something._ 'What is their motive?'_

At that moment, he and his team made visual contact with their likely-enemies and halted in the trees a safe distance away. Kakashi noticed that none of these shinobi wore hitai-ate. Strange. Most shinobi wore an identifying headband to distinguish where their loyalties lie. Even nuke-nin usually wore one, if only to display their place of birth or to remind themselves of the home they could never return to.

There were two males; one slender with white hair carrying a familiar, large sword, and the other stocky with short orange hair. The lone kunoichi was a thin-build redhead. All in all a standard team for most villages. However, it would seem that they didn't get along judging by the way they were quarrelling.

"What are they doing?" Yamato's voice was barely a whisper.

A warranted question. The more Kakashi observed, the more confused he became. What _were_ they doing? It was obvious they were arguing, but the issue was with their apparent lack of common sense. These ninja had lowered their guard, proclaimed their exact location, and above all were continuing to do so. They were, by definition, dim-witted.

Kakashi signaled to get closer.

Once in position, he could understand most of their heated conversation: "We need to get Jugo here to Sasuke before…" the man never finished as the two arguing turned to look at their teammate, presumably 'Jugo'.

'_This must be Sasuke's team,'_ Kakashi mused.

The Copy Nin turned to his team and assigned everyone their target. "Yamato, take the slender one with white hair," he instructed quietly. "Sai, you'll secure the woman with red hair. I've got the big one."

"Understood."

The redhead sighed then looked back at white-haired man and asked, "So what's the plan?"

Kakashi gave the signal to take action.

Getting around their guard was easy enough, considering they had dropped it almost entirely, and he got behind his target in just a few seconds.

"Don't move," Kakashi warned, pressing a kunai against the man's jugular.

0o0o0

The godaime tapped her fingers on the desk absentmindedly. She had been unable to focus all morning. Kakashi's team was due to arrive within the next couple of hours and the Hokage just couldn't get the mission-update Sai had sent yesterday out of her head.

After little more than an hour fretting and spacing out, Tsunade heard a light tapping on the window. Turning, she was slightly surprised to see another one of Sai's ink-birds pecking at the glass. The mission-update flew and landed on her desk when the blonde woman opened the window and immediately morphed into parchment with writing, and Tsunade's eyes went wide with surprise when she read its contents.

"Tori!" the Hokage ordered and a woman wearing a simple bird mask appeared in the office on one knee. "Take your squad and provide prisoner security at the south gate!" The Hokage commanded, and without a word the ANBU vanished.

The Fifth attempted to wait patiently, but her fingers drummed the desk, betraying her thoughts. _'__What does Kakashi think he's doing?! His mission had nothing to do with capturing and transporting possible-missing nin!'_ Her mind continued with other such thoughts in an attempt to calm her frustrations. Tsunade blew out a sigh. Why couldn't missions be simple affairs? Of course, the answer to that was obvious. She sighed again.

Ten minutes later, Shizune frantically burst into the Hokage's office. "My Lady!"

"What is it?" There was _more_ trouble? _'This day just keeps getting better_,_'_ she mentally intoned with a half growl.

"It's Naruto… He's—"

"Yo."

"Kakashi," the Hokage's her voice was all business, even though she was eager to learn the circumstances. "What's the situation?"

"The mission was completed successfully. Yamato, Sai, Sakura, and myself have suffered no injuries."

"And Naruto?"

"He's… How should I put it?" After a few infuriating seconds of thought, he continued. "I gue—"

"My Lady!" an urgent voice interrupted.

Tsunade blinked. "Sakura, what ar— Who is that?" the Kage interrupted herself, referring to the whimpering infant in the blossom's arms.

When Sakura couldn't find her words quickly, Shizune attempted to explain. "He got caught in a jutsu, my Lady," she said in a rush.

"Who did?"

Kakashi sighed. "This infant is Naruto," he clarified calmly. "He had a run in with an unknown shinobi who apparently saw fit to cast a jutsu we've never heard of, reverting Naruto to an infant."

"What are we going to do?" Sakura interjected, her voice pleading.

Stunned, Tsunade couldn't speak for a moment.

The tiny blond began to cry pleadingly, pulling the older blonde's attention back to her office. Tsunade watched as her apprentice started to lightly bounce and rock the infant, trying to get him to calm down, the worried expression never leaving the young girl's face.

"Injuries?" She steered the conversation back in its original direction.

"One," Kakashi informed. "Naruto's arm was superficially wounded by a small canine. It was taken care of but should still be looked at."

The Hokage nodded at the bandages adoring the tiny arm. Lacing her fingers, Tsunade tucked her chin behind her hands in silent contemplation. Every question she wanted to ask relied on someone having seen the hand signs used, the jutsu being performed, the jutsu caster, or something of the sort.

Her thoughts shifted to Naruto's condition. '_He'll have to have a physical examination and a psychological scan.'_ Tsunade glanced up at the teenager-turned-baby. '_We should also check his chakra coils.'_

Without warning Naruto's crying became a full out wail.

"What's the matter?"

"I'm not sure," the worry in her voice mixed with confusion, and then she froze.

Concerned that something was wrong, Shizune approached but stopped mid stride. The assistant turned around with a crinkled nose. "I think he needs to be changed," she declared.

The godaime almost burst out laughing. Sighing to conceal her efforts to not cackle out loud, and pinching the bridge of her nose to obscure any expression that might escape, she said, "Take him to the infirmary."

Sakura was so flabbergasted that she forgot to acknowledge the order as she began leaving the office, attempting not to drop the loudly squirming infant. Shizune nodded and began following Sakura out the door.

"Sakura."

Said kunoichi halted in the doorway and turned to face her leader. "Yes?"

"Do _not_ let this situation leak out. I am classifying this an S-rank secret until further notice," the Hokage said sternly as her composure returned._ 'If the elders knew about this...'_ she didn't finish the thought.

"Do _not_ let this situation leak out," the hokage said sternly as her composure returned. "Make sure everyone who knows Naruto's identity talks to absolutely no one about it." _'If the elders knew about this...'_ she didn't finish the thought.

"Hai !" Sakura acknowledged and headed to the infirmary. Shizune nodded her understanding and followed the young kunoichi out.

When the door clicked shut Tsunade regarded Kakashi seriously. "Tell me what happened," she demanded.

Immediately he recounted the events that took place. When he finished the oral report, Tsunade held her chin in contemplation.

"I believe," Kakashi interrupted her musings. "That Naruto and Sasuke are connected somehow."

"Explain."

Kakashi paused before continuing. "When Sasuke was first spotted, he was almost a kilometer from Naruto's position. However, the only reason we captured him was because he had collapsed. As we approached him, Sasuke attempted to flee but his coordination seemed completely impaired. His condition worsened as Sakura carried Naruto away. He didn't improve until he was transported back to camp. _Towards_ Naruto."

"What are you implying?"

"That either their chakra or nervous systems are linked. Maybe both."

Tsunade was pessimistically fascinated by this prospect.

"Do you think Sasuke is responsible?" she asked pensively.

"It is highly unlikely. Sasuke wouldn't cast a jutsu that would result in self-impairment," Kakashi stated.

Tsunade could see the reasoning. Sasuke put a lot of stock in his visual jutsus, and the Uchiha would be at a disadvantage if his senses were impaired.

"Then who would have, or could have cast such a jutsu? Why did they go through the trouble of transforming Naruto yet did not take him?"

The room was silent.

"One thing we know," Kakashi mused into the silence. "Whoever it was, they aren't finished yet."

"Agreed. We'll have to keep a watchful eye on Naruto."

Kakashi nodded.

"There's one more thing," the jounin added gravely.

**A/N:** chapter posted 11/24/12

Sis1&2 – We're not dead! \o/ Whoo Hoo! Thanks to our follows, favs, and reviewers! We would have no reason to keep posting if not for you guys. :)

Sis1 – Man, this writers block is a killer! We are having so much trouble trying to get simple POVs out… It's horrible! On a different note, I quite like this chapter :)

Sis2 – Even though we fought our way through it.

Sis1 – And even though the chapter is _Really_ short after being gone for so long… OTL

Sis1&2 – We're Sorry! /\ Please don't kill us! We'll never be able to finish if that happens!

Sis1 – Back to the fic. To help clear up any possible confusion: Last chapter we left you with the cliffy of some 'unknown person' telling Jugo "Don't move", and we begin this chappy with Itachi telling Sakura "Don't move". They are different, as you should have seen in Kakashi's POV. And just so we're clear, Kakashi is that "unknown person"

Sis2 – So, any questions from the reader division?

Sis1 – Comments? Pointers? Opinions? Any form of help is welcome.

Sis2 – Like a beta! Our betas are both MIA! :(

Sis1 – So we apologize for any obvious mistakes. If anyone would like to beta reading our story—

Sis1&2 – We'd love to hear from you!

Sis2 – We are looking for someone who can help with plot/story line, spelling/grammar, writing style improvement, and character check (making sure a character is in character). If you feel that you may be able to help us with two or more of the above, feel free to PM us. :)


	8. Who is he?

"Ugh, I hate this place." The young man walked with purpose in his attempted to flee from the repulsive smells wafting from the nearby hospital, nose and eyes crinkled due to the sharp smells assaulting his sensitive senses. His canine partner keeping stride next to him barked in agreement. A few seconds later a familiar voice reached Kiba's ears.

"Would you please hold still..." he heard Sakura plead.

Looking up, the Inuzuka found the pink haired nin struggling to keep a blond kid in her arms as she made her way towards the infirmary, Shizune close at her heels.

As soon as the small boy spotted Kiba his tiny blue eyes widened and he suddenly began to squirm, wriggle and squeal like his life depended on it with this crazy excited expression on his face.

"Hey Sakura! Shizune," he greeted as they approached conversational distance. At that exact moment, Sakura lost her grip on the wriggling infant and he began to dive head-first toward the unforgiving ground.

Kiba reacted instantly, scooping the boy up before he could crack his head open.

"Whoa there, let's not add brain damage to the list, ok?" He gave the small blond a broad toothy grin.

Sakura breathed a sigh of relief. "That was close, thanks Kiba."

Kiba blinked and exchanged an imperceptible glance with Akamaru, before slowly handing the gaki back to the young medical nin's outstretched arms. "So, who's the kid?" He asked casually.

The two kunoichi exchanged odd looks.

"Um, well we..." Sakura trailed off for a moment before quickly continuing. "We found him on our way back from the mission. He was being attacked by a wolf cub."

Kiba had already spotted the bandages around his tiny arm. "Is he alright?"

"We're not sure yet..." Sakura hadn't answered immediately, and when she did her voice sounded distant, worried.

"A-Anyway, let's get him checked in, ok Sakura?" Shizune piped up, guiding Sakura with the blond spiky haired kid toward the front doors of the hospital.

Confusion crept up inside Kiba, but he shoved it down to keep it off his face. Something told him that these two were hiding something; and that they weren't going to tell him. "Ok then, see you later," he called cheerfully with a wave as he passed by.

"Yeah, ok."

Kiba only took three steps before the confusion again tried to worm its way back onto the contours of his face. He glanced over his shoulder at the trio as he continued walking to find the kid staring at him from Sakura's arms, and the moment their eyes met a broad, open-mouthed grin threatened to crack his tiny features.

Facing forward again, the young clan heir tried to process what he'd smelled.

**0o0o0**

"-iba. Kiba!"

Said boy's head snapped up. "Huh?"

"Ah, troublesome." Several seconds passed with no response. Shikamaru furrowed his brow, but Choji beat him to the question that popped into his head.

"Are you ok?"

"What? Yeah, I'm fine. Why?"

"Because you're not acting like yourself," Shikamaru intoned as if it were a bother. Which it was. An Inuzuka acting strangely almost always meant something out of the ordinary was up.

"Yeah, you didn't even say hi," Choji agreed, hand paused in the act of retrieving a fistful of chips.

Hinata piped up then. "Y-You have been staring at the ground for quite some time."

Shino was standing in the background, silent, observing the scene in front of him.

"Sorry guys, I've just had something on my mind." The spacy teenager blinked, suddenly realizing his two friends hadn't been there a minute ago. "What are you two doing here anyway?"

Shikamaru shook his head while Choji explained with a confused look on his face. "We just said that we just got back from a mission and we're heading to Ichiraku."

Kiba looked at his comrades and teammates in turn from his spot sitting under a shade tree. Kiba and Akamaru had been sparing with Hinata and Shino in one of the training grounds, since they all had had a few hours of free time, and were in the middle of a short break. Running his fingers through his hair, the Inuzuka huffed out a sigh. He looked to be about ready to just brush it off as nothing, but was interrupted.

"Kiba, why don't you tell us what is on your mind," Shino suggested. "Why? Because we are worried about you."

Kiba glanced at his teammate, surprised, then turned to his friends when Akamaru looked over to bark reassuringly.

The Inuzuka turned and smiled fondly at his partner. "Heh, you're right boy."

Returning his gaze, Kiba tried to find the right words—something Inuzuka were not known for. Shikamaru's eyes narrowed minutely. Something was definitely up. Stuffing his hands in his pockets, the Nara sighed. "Just out with it," he huffed, trying to speed his friend along. Curiosity was picking at him and he wanted the puzzle his friend was presenting to bring enough pieces to the board for him to actually have something to analyse.

Kiba's eyes momentarily rested on Shikamaru before lowering to where his hands were fiddling with some grass under the tree. "I saw Sakura today," he began slowly.

"So they're back?" Choji piped up.

Kiba nodded before continuing. "She was taking this kid her team had apparently found in the woods to the infirmary."

He paused.

"Did you know the kid or something?"

At this, Kiba's whole countenance seemed to shift. "No," he finally answered. "It's just that, everything about the kid reminds me of Naruto; his hair, his eyes, his smile. Even his _smell_."

Shikamaru blinked as the gears to this puzzle rearranged a bit in his head. "How old is the kid," the Nara prodded. "Could Naruto have been holding him the entire time?"

Kiba thought about it. "The kid's definitely young enough for that, but—"

"Hey! Have you guys seen Naruto-Nii-chan?" a new voice interrupted, causing several heads to turn.

"Hey Konohamaru," Choji greeted cheerfully. "How've ya been?"

"I've _been _all over Konoha looking for Naruto-Nii ! I thought he was supposed to get back yesterday but I can't find him anywhere!"

"Yeah, that's what we thought too," Shikamaru answered. "But it seems they were detained and have arrived just today."

Konohamaru brightened. "Do you know where he is?" he asked excitedly, almost bouncing at the prospect that his search was finally over.

"No. But Sakura was seen at the infirmary, she might know where he is."

"Thanks! I'll go ask her!" Konohamaru yelled, waving his appreciation as he ran in the general direction of the medical facility, his ever-present scarf flapping in his wake. Shikamaru had the vague sensation that something was missing during that exchange, but he filed it away in favor of the present dilemma.

As soon as the genin was out of sight, Shikamaru turned back to Kiba to reinstate their conversation. "So the kid is young enough to be held, but the theory of Naruto holding him for a period of time cannot explain why he smells like Naruto?"

Kiba nodded. "I could smell someone, several people actually, on his clothes. If Naruto had been holding the gaki then the clothes should have smelled like Naruto, however they barely smelled like him at all." He crinkled his nose then, finishing with, "Actually they smelled a bit musty too, like they'd been in an attic for years."

Shikamaru grabbed at his chin as he considered this new information. "So the kid smells strongly of Naruto, but his clothes don't by comparison?" he clarified.

Kiba nodded affirmatively.

The Nara heir let several theories bounce around in his head, trying to rule out as many of them as possible. But in the end, every hypothesis he conjured could either be eliminated or remained inconclusive due to lack of information.

The fact that the child was presumably found abandoned in the woods... didn't fit. However, the fact that Team Kakashi had picked the kid up at all made even less sense. Shinobi didn't pick up random strays for no reason. Which meant that there _was_ a reason.

"You saw the kid, right? Was he malnourished in any way? Any abnormal markings or injuries?" Shikamaru asked, trying to get a feel for the situation Team Kakashi might have been in.

Kiba thought. "Not really. Aside from the bite wound, he looked well taken care of, healthy and chubby like any baby."

"Since when are you an expert on infants?" Shino droned.

"I'm not," Kiba retorted mildly. "But, haven't you seen the kids in the village? Brats that age usually look like a bunch of sausage links. This kid wasn't quite that plump, but still...he didn't look like anything was majorly wrong with him."

Shikamaru would have been amused at the exchange if he hadn't been so focused on the puzzle at hand.

The information just didn't fit. If Shikamaru were presented with an abandoned infant being attacked in the forest, his first thought would have been 'trap'. However, knowing Naruto, the blond would not have been able to leave a defenseless child to the mercies of the forest.

But why risk bring the kid back to Konoha with them? They had to have found the kid before reaching Konoha's wooded outerparimater. If the suspected scenario had occurred close to Konoha, Naruto's team wouldn't have been delayed for over 24 hours. Therefore, Naruto likely found the kid in the wood before they'd reached Reimori City, the last village on their route back to Konoha. In those circumstances, Shikamaru would have left the kid at the orphanage or functioning medical facility there. Naruto would have been appeased and having to deal with a possible danger would have been averted, so why was it necessary to bring the infant to Konoha?

Shikamaru sighed inwardly. That line of thinking was going to get him nowhere without more information, so he decided to switch gears and glean as many facts as possible.

"How strong was the kid's scent on his clothes?" Since the clothes smelled musty maybe the infant hadn't been wearing them for very long, although he couldn't think of a reason for the infant to need clothes more than likely pilfered from a civilian attic.

"That's just it, the gaki didn't _have_ his own scent."

Shikamaru blinked, staring oddly at his friend. _"What?"_

**0o0o0**

"How may I help you?" the coffee haired woman behind the hospital reception desk asked pleasantly.

"Is Sakura here?" Konohamaru asked bluntly, panting just a bit from the run over.

The brunette began checking the files in front of her before answering. "Actually, yes, Sakura brought in a patient just a little while ago." She glanced up at him, but he had gotten all the information he needed.

"Thanks!" he called as he sped away, opting for the old fashioned way to find who he was looking for. If he'd asked for a room number the desk lady probably would have just spouted some sort of nonsense about 'patient privacy' or something anyway, this would be faster.

Konohamaru wasn't entirely sure how he was going to find the pink haired girl, but he figured if she was bringing a patient in, then it was probably Naruto. And knowing her rather boiling temper, all he'd have to do to find them would be to listen for an angry kunoichi ranting about how reckless her teammate had been. That's usually what happened when Naruto landed himself in the hospital.

After fifteen minutes of wandering the hallways to no avail, the inexplicable apprehension he'd been feeling for the last two days began to steadily increase. He would never admit it to anybody, but he felt like he needed to find Naruto. Now.

Suddenly he heard Sakura's muffled voice in conversation.

Konohamaru blinked, eyes cutting toward the sound. A door left slightly ajar a few meters ahead seemed to be what he was looking for. He walked up to it and peered inside, expecting to see a bandaged blond in a hospital bed with a pink haired girl ranting about acting rashly. He did find the blossom, and a blond, but not the one he was looking for. This blond was just a baby.

The kid was in Sakura's lap facing the nurse, who sat in a chair opposite them, as she wrapped a white bandage around his tiny arm. Sakura observed, asking weird medical questions and stuff.

Konohamaru's brow furrowed. There was something about him. He seemed... familiar.

He watched for a few minutes, trying to figure out why he knew the baby. The more he looked, the more sure he became that he knew this kid from someplace. But where?

Suddenly, the tiny blond shrieked an excited 'Koh!' and Konohamaru flinched at the unexpected noise.

"What is it, little one?" The nurse cooed. "You trying to talk?"

As if in answer, the baby repeated 'koh' over and over again, almost as if testing the sound he made when saying it.

"Konoha?" the nurse tried, smiling gently.

The baby looked at her oddly, blinking, then a wide grin cut across his face and he exclaimed 'Ooo!'

"No. Ko-no-ha," the medical person repeated good naturedly.

The baby looked to be concentrating very hard on the few syllables. Konohamaru smiled. The kid was learning to talk.

Little Mini-blond suddenly began squealing, stretching his stubby arms and leaning toward the door. Konohamaru tensed as the two girls looked over and spotted him. The nurse looked surprised but smiled as she beckoned him to enter. A fleeting expression crossed behind the pink haired kunoichi's eyes, but it was hidden before he could tell what it was.

Sheepishly, he opened the door, rubbing the back of his head. "Sorry. I heard Sakura and..." He paused, letting his eyes land on the baby. "Hey there, Mini-blond," he shifted his attention, abandoning his feeble explanation. "How are your injuries?"

"Would you like to hold him?" the nurse asked suddenly.

Konohamaru was startled; he'd never held a baby before.

"Here, come sit here," the nurse directed, getting up from her seat and gesturing to it.

He faltered, not quite sure what he was supposed to do.

"Don't worry, you'll be fine," Sakura encouraged with an amused grin.

That wasn't exactly the problem. He wasn't so much worried about himself as he was dropping the kid, but he hesitantly walked over and sat down as directed anyway.

Sakura maneuvered the blond in her lap, turning him around and transporting him to his own lap.

Okay, now he was _really_ out of his comfort zone. He did want to hold the kid, but he had no idea how. His hands hovered next to Mini-blond, completely unsure of what he was supposed to do with them. "Here," the nurse directed again, taking his hands and placing them around the kid's middle. "Hold him like this." He did and Mini-blond actually stayed put.

'_Well, this isn't too bad.'_

But not even ten seconds later the baby was wriggling, squirming and twisting on his lap. Only then did Konohamaru realize how _heavy _the fragile thing on his lap was.

How was he supposed to hang on to him without breaking him?!

"Do you want to move?" the nurse -he really needed to find out her name- asked the kid.

'Mo!' the kid exclaimed. Repeating it again and again, 'Moh. Moh!' Konohamaru would have smiled if he wasn't so flabbergasted trying not to drop him. The nurse grabbed him and lifted him up, only to set him right back down again, just turned around so that their eyes met.

Konohamaru stared into those deep cerulean eyes. Those oddly familiar eyes.

Suddenly the kid's bright orbs crinkled in a wide grin while stretching his mini hands towards him. "Koh- Moh- Ooo-"

Konohamaru froze.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

Dun-dun-dun.

sis1&2 - YAY! WE'RE DONE WITH CHAPTER 8! \o/ \o/  
><em><strong>Gomen'nasai !<strong>_ We're Sorry! x10 Life got in the way of writing! ):

sis1 - We do actually have several viable reasons for taking so long. One of them being that we no longer live in the same house, and it makes co-writing _extremely_ difficult... so we are, unfortunately, going on semi-hiatus with this story. And it is for this reason we must announce that chapters will take longer than they used to.

sis2 - She left me! She moved out! Gah! Why doesn't anyone love me?

sis1 - 0.0

sis2 - Doesn't anyone care about Sid the sloth? Oh wait, thats not me. :p

sis1 - You poor child...

sis2 - What do you mean poor child... I am an extremely poor child. How dare you run off on your own without me! (baer with our family issues for a bit here)

sis1 - *Rubs back of head* Sorry about that. Anyway, back to the AN. Before anyone asks, Shizune is not forgotten, there is a reason she's not with Sakura right now.

sis2 - She is wandering around the hospital somewhere.

sis1 - Sheesh, just tell them everything before we get there why don't ya... *smirk*

sis2 - Sorry, sorry, got ahead of myself. You type, I'll stop.

sis1 - *Rolls eyes* :) Oh, this is a bit random but, the city name is made up. We tried to find the name of an actual village that was where we put it, but we couldn't :/ Also, Naruto is a bit hyped up on adrenaline so he doesn't notice the vague ill feeling in his body.

So, as usual, please review and tell us what you're thinking, what you liked, how something works, why it doesn't, what you think would work better, any pointers you may have, anything we're doing that is frustrating you... basically, if you read it then we want to hear from you :)

sis2 - Also, since we lost both our betas we would like to know if we missed anything, so if you could point out any and all grammatical (or otherwise) mistakes/errors, it would be much appreciated.

sis1&2 - Many thanks to all are Readers, Followers, and Reviewers! XD

**Story Recommendations:**

"Chance for a Prophecy" by Dorcyy  
>You can't stop the flow of time. It's wheel only whirls in one direction. It is impossible for a mere human to change that path. But sometimes the impossible must be done… Naruto time travel fanfiction.<p>

-This ongoing story is very long and amazingly well written. Don't let the grammatical errors at the beginning throw you off (whoever Dorcyy's beta was could have done a better job), it does not reflect the quality of writing. Dorcyy got a new beta at about chapter 8 and it flows much better after that. Oh, and don't just stop reading because you think the story won't change; there are so many twists that it is just mind boggling to think that this is their first fanfic.

* * *

><p>"Dreaming of Sunshine" by Silver Queen<br>Life as a ninja. It starts with confusion and terror and doesn't get any better from there. OC Self-insert

-Ok, we're not the Self-insert type of readers, but this fic is amazing. I (sis1) still can't figure out why I started reading it in the first place, but I kept reading it because it was just that good. :) They build the Naruto-verse to a degree that is just...it makes you feel like you're there. Also, this author's writing improves as they write, almost as if you're watching the character grow and mature.


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